Alive Online Do's and Don'ts

We're glad you found us at ColumbusAlive.com. This is a place where you can offer feedback on Alive stories, interact with Alive staffers, talk about your favorite Columbus bands, restaurants, bars and stores, and engage in spirited and vigorous debate on pop-culture minutiae with other Alive readers. We need your help to be that place. These ground rules are intended to keep things fun around here. Take a moment to read through our do's and don'ts before jumping into commenting on Alive stories and message boards, as they will be enforced along with the Terms of Service.

Do:

• Speak up. Tell us what's on your mind and let us know what you like and don't like.
• Treat everyone who posts on ColumbusAlive.com with same respect you give people in real life. And if you don't treat people in real life with respect, then, respectfully, we don't want you around.
• Take a minute to find the most appropriate place to post your comments and messages.
• Keep everyone honest by alerting site administrators when you see rule violations, and flagging violating content.
• Stay on topic when commenting on articles or posting in message board threads.

Don't:

• Simply put, don't be an a-hole. Nobody likes those.
• Attack people personally. We love debate, but you can dislike a person's point without disliking them as a person. Remember, bad taste doesn't make you a bad person.
• Post offensive or hateful content.
• Be racist, sexist or homophobic. That goes for real life, too.
• Humiliate or intimidate anyone.
• Vent or use the site as a platform for your personal grudges.
• Spam the site! Don't post a million announcements about your band's gig this weekend. Don't be lazy and cut-and-paste the same message you just posted on 10 other forums. Not cool.
• Advertise commercial products or services, solicit business contacts, or post links with the sole purpose of plugging other sites.
• Pick fights, antagonize other posters, or respond to incendiary posts intended to start fights.
• Impersonate someone else or create multiple accounts with the intention of staging elaborate conversations with yourself.
• Use language you think might possibly offend your grandmother or anyone else's grandmother.
• Post illegal or unwelcome material, including defamatory or pornographic material, private or personally identifying information, media depicting illegal behavior, or copyright-violating material.
• Flag content just because you don't agree with it or don't like it.
• Try to "game" the reputation system or gain unfair advantage in any contests.
• Guess what? We don't acknowledge the Bill of Rights around here. You can't use the freedom of speech excuse to justify conducting business or formal research on our site, using our community members, without the knowledge and consent of Alive staffers and ColumbusAlive.com posters.

Remember:

These guidelines, as well as the Terms of Service, apply to all of the features and content areas of this site, including personal profiles and direct messaging. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to resolve disputes between members to maintain the civility of the community. User-contributed content on our site reflects the views and opinions of those members - not Columbus Alive or its staff.

Moderation Policy:

Contributions, comments and members that are flagged repeatedly by community members as violating these guidelines or the terms of service are automatically removed from public view pending moderation. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to make repeatedly flagged content public again after review. And all content, regardless of flags, is subject to review. Moderators may remove content without notice or explanation. Repeated or egregious violations of these guidelines or the terms of service will result in termination of your account.

If you have any questions about these guidelines, contact the site administrators.