Community standards and participation guidelines

http://www.guardian.co.uk/community-standards

10 guidelines which we expect all participants in the Guardian's community areas to abide by

• Thursday 7 May 2009 18.14 BST

Scope

This document covers all aspects of community interaction and moderation on the Guardian website, including comments on blogs or articles.

Moderation aims

The Guardian website provides a growing number of opportunities for readers who wish to discuss content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Our aim is to ensure this platform is inclusive and safe, and that the Guardian website is the place on the net where you will always find lively, entertaining and, above all, intelligent discussions.

Community standards

There are 10 simple guidelines which we expect all participants in the community areas of the Guardian website to abide by, all of which directly inform our approach to community moderation (detailed below). These apply across the site, while moderation decisions are also informed by the context in which comments are made.

1. We welcome debate and dissent, but personal attacks (on authors, other users or any individual), persistent trolling and mindless abuse will not be tolerated. The key to maintaining the Guardian website as an inviting space is to focus on intelligent discussion of topics.

2. We acknowledge criticism of the articles we publish, but will not allow persistent misrepresentation of the Guardian and our journalists to be published on our website. For the sake of robust debate, we will distinguish between constructive, focused argument and smear tactics.

3. We understand that people often feel strongly about issues debated on the site, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening. Please respect other people's views and beliefs and consider your impact on others when making your contribution.

4. We reserve the right to redirect or curtail conversations which descend into flame-wars based on ingrained partisanship or generalisations. We don't want to stop people discussing topics they are enthusiastic about, but we do ask users to find ways of sharing their views that do not feel divisive, threatening or toxic to others.

5. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or contributions that could be interpreted as such. We recognise the difference between criticising a particular government, organisation, community or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.

6. We will remove any content that may put us in legal jeopardy, such as potentially libellous or defamatory postings, or material posted in potential breach of copyright.

7. We will remove any posts that are obviously commercial or otherwise spam-like. Our aim is that this site should provide a space for people to interact with our content and each other, and we actively discourage commercial entities passing themselves off as individuals, in order to post advertising material or links. This may also apply to people or organisations who frequently post propaganda or external links without adding substantively to the quality of the discussion on the Guardian website.

8. Keep it relevant. We know that some conversations can be wide-ranging, but if you post something which is unrelated to the original topic ("off-topic") then it may be removed, in order to keep the thread on track. This also applies to queries or comments about moderation, which should not be posted as comments.

9. Be aware that you may be misunderstood, so try to be clear about what you are saying, and expect that people may understand your contribution differently than you intended. Remember that text isn't always a great medium for conversation: tone of voice (sarcasm, humour and so on) doesn't always come across when using words on a screen. You can help to keep the Guardian community areas open to all viewpoints by maintaining a reasonable tone, even in unreasonable circumstances.

10. The platform is ours, but the conversation belongs to everybody. We want this to be a welcoming space for intelligent discussion, and we expect participants to help us achieve this by notifying us of potential problems and helping each other to keep conversations inviting and appropriate. If you spot something problematic in community interaction areas, please report it. When we all take responsibility for maintaining an appropriate and constructive environment, the debate itself is improved and everyone benefits.

In short:

-  If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems.
- Don't be unpleasant. Demonstrate and share the intelligence, wisdom and humour we know you possess.
- Take some responsibility for the quality of the conversations in which you're participating. Help make this an intelligent place for discussion and it will be.

社区准则与参与指南

十条我们希望《卫报》社区的所有参与者都要遵守的准则。

• 2009年五月7日星期四 18：14

适用范围

这一文件涵盖在《卫报》网站上的社区互动以及自我控制的所有方面，包括在博客和文章中发表评论。

自我控制目标

《卫报》网站提供越来越多的机会给那些希望参与讨论我们发布的文章，或者更广泛地讨论问题的读者们。我们的目标是确保这一平台是广泛包容一切观点的和安全的，并且确保《卫报》网站是一个在网络上，永远能让你感到充满活力、令人愉快，最重要的是“智慧的”，讨论空间。

社区准则

我们希望所有《卫报》网站社区的参与者们都需要遵守的10条简单的规则，所有准则都对于我们在参与社区讨论过程中的自我控制（以下是详细内容）有直接影响。这些规则适用于整个网站，而且对于自我控制的裁决也会根据被评论文章的背景内容决定。

1、我们欢迎争论和不同的意见。但是人生攻击（对于作者，其他用户或者任何个人的），反复出现的重复吆喝和没头脑的谩骂将是不被容忍的。维护《卫报》网站成为一个有吸引力的空间的关键在于对于文章主题的智慧的讨论。

2、我们感谢对于我们发布的文章的批评，但是不允许针对《卫报》和我们的记者的，持续的故意讹传出现在我们的网站上。为了富有活力的争辩，我们将把有建设性的，焦点性的争论和诋毁的手段区别开来。

3、我们理解人们经常会对于一些在网上讨论的问题有很激烈的感受，但是我们将考虑移除任何可能会让他人感到极端讨厌或者威胁的内容。请尊重其他人的观点和信仰，当你做出贡献（评论）的时候请考虑到你将对他人造成的冲击。

4、我们保留重新使用或者缩短那些基于根深蒂固的党派偏见，或者一般化的，降至不良信息战的会话的权利。我们不想中断人们讨论他们所热衷的话题，但是我们要求用户设法分享他们的不会导致分裂的，不危险的，无害的观点。

5、我们不允许种族歧视，性别歧视，对于同性恋的歧视或者其他形式的带有憎恨的言论，或者可以被解释成为这些带有歧视意义的评论。我们把对于特定政府，组织，社团或者信仰的批评和基于种族，性别，性取向，残疾或者年龄的人生攻击区别开来。

6、我们将移除任何可能牵扯到法律危险的内容，如潜在的诽谤或者诋毁名誉的转载，或者潜在的侵犯版权的转载。

7、我们将移除任何明显的商业广告或者其他方面的垃圾邮件之类的内容。我们的目标是让这一网站为人们提供一个与我们发布的内容以及用户之间互动的空间，我们积极地阻碍商业机构为了发布商业资料或者链接而假冒个人身份。这可能也适用于频繁地张贴广告或者外部链接，而没有增加卫报网站的实质性的质量的组织和一般人。

8、保持切题。我们知道一些会话能涉及广阔的内容，但是，为了让讨论思路保持在原来的轨道上，如果你张贴的内容是与原文主题不相关的（离题的），那么它可能会被移除，这也适用于关于自我控制的疑问或不能被作为评论而贴出的评论。

9、意识到你可能被误解，所以设法明白自己在说什么，并且预料到人们可能会误解你的发言与你想要表达的意思并不相同。记住文字并不总是一个很好的交谈媒介：当面对屏幕使用文字的时候，说话的腔调（讽刺，幽默等等）并不总是能准确地传达过去的。甚至是在非理智的情况下，通过维持一个适度的语调，你也能帮助《卫报》社区向所有的观点敞开。

10、这个平台是我们的，但是讨论是属于每一个人的。我们希望这里是一个对于智慧的辩论发言受欢迎的空间，我们期待参与者们帮助我们实现这一目标，通过对于潜在问题通知我们的方式。我们互相帮助，保持谈论是吸引人的和合适的。如果你看出在社区互动区域有一些有问题的地方，请举报它。当我们全都为维持一个适当的和积极的环境负起责任的时候，争论本身就被提升了，并且每一个人都会从中受益。

简言之：

如果你行为成熟并且考虑到其他用户，你就不会有任何问题。

不要使人不愉快。显示并分享你的机智、智慧和幽默，我们知道你具有这些优点。

作者：协力art