All civilized organizations or groups have guidelines to encourage productive interactions and discourage unproductive ones. The following are designed to promote civil discussion.

Here are the guidelines used to govern commenting on this website:

1. Civility is valued by the moderator.
2. Insulting other commenters will get you deleted. Do it too often and you will get banned.
3. No slurs–racial, ethnic, gender, political etc. The term sheeple will get your comment deleted. Also, stop calling local places by sneering nicknames, etc. Genuine complaints/opinions okay. Sneers are not okay.
4. Try to add value to the website by offering information, art, humor or, most of all, thoughtful discussion.
5. Free speech is valued by the moderator and sometimes that trumps civility but don’t push it.
6. Also, grammar, punctuation, spelling criticisms should come from parents, teachers, and bosses not anonymous people on the internet. If you can understand what someone says, refrain from telling them how to edit their comments. The one exception to this is me. If I make an error, politely pointing it out is fine.
7. Mocking people in positions of authority is acceptable. Mocking children, disabled people, those suffering from misfortune, those in a minority who don’t have power is something a bully does.
8. Don’t threaten or encourage violence. [Advocating for the death penalty is considered a political stance and allowed though this moderator is personally against its use.–Added December 22, 2019–Saying somebody should be shot or lynched is no longer allowed. Stick with terms that can reasonably be interpreted to mean the modern death penalty after a trial. ]
9. If there is significant evidence (for instance, being charged by law enforcement) that a crime occurred, I allow accusations of wrongdoing. However, please don’t accuse someone by name of a crime when there is no evidence readily available to a reasonable reader. Please don’t name minors even if they have been arrested.
10. [Added Jan 1, 2019] I don’t have to host hate speech on my website. I will warn you if I feel you are breaking this rule and will ban you if necessary. I encourage a wide diversity of opinions but, eventually, I may need to ask you to go elsewhere to express yourself.
11. For my own sanity, I instituted the rule over 5 years ago that using the email address section of the commenting submittal form as an insult results in automatic deleting.
12. If your comment is too gross (delving deeply into descriptions of defecation, etc) it will be deleted.
13. Stick to one name per article.
14. Only one image meme per article. [UPDATE January 16, 2022: We reserve the right to delete any memes or screenshots if we believe the commenter is overusing the privilege.]
15. This website is primarily for getting out news. A commenter may be put on moderation or deleted if, in the eye of the site owner, they create drama or require too much work and get in the way of putting out news. [This includes repeatedly linking to tinfoil hat sites/those with a history of very poor fact checking.]
16. People in positions of authority or public trust (elected officials, tribal leaders, police officers, judges, school administrators, board and committee members et al.) should not expect to be protected from criticism and/or unsavory commentary.
17.  [Added Jan 16, 2022] Comments not pertaining to the post/article, may be deleted at the moderator’s discretion.

Here’s a quick explanation of how commenting works here. First comments are held for moderation. Most people after the first comment are free to comment without moderation. Some people who have trouble following the guidelines above get put on moderation hold. It can sometimes take as long as a whole day for me to moderate—though it usually takes less than an hour if the comment comes in during the day.

If you see a comment that you feel breaks these guidelines, use my name in a reply to the comment and say something like “Kym, this looks racist.” Or “Kym, this is an insult.” It might take me a full day but usually, I will see and moderate within an hour or so.