Comments policy explained

Follow us:WhatsappFacebookTwitterTelegram.cls-1{fill:#4d4d4d;}.cls-2{fill:#fff;}Google NewsDo not be rude to other users/authors: "You are an idiot" hardly qualifies as constructive debate or discussion. Same goes for questioning another's cultural/educational/religious background. It is what you have to say that counts more than where you come from.

Ethnic slurs, personal insults, objectionable/abusive language: Not much to explain here. Yes, we do believe in the concept of freedom of expression, but we don't want to build a community that is best-known for its skill and variety in name calling.

Criticism, when constructive and non-disruptive is always welcome: Criticize what we write by all means, but do substantiate what you are trying to say. It is more than okay to say what we have published is rubbish as long as you can elaborate why it is rubbish. It is not okay to leave it at "this is rubbish!" Let us know why you consider it to be so. Yes, it is important for us to know that.

Comments with links in them won't be published other than in cases of rare exceptions: The exceptions are there in case of genuine information that is being given out. We will no clear comments that have nothing more to contribute than a link to someone's personal blog or other forms of advertising.

Comments that include personal details such as postal addresses and telephone numbers will not be published: This is a simple and clear rule, though quite a few comments have been screened because of this. Please do not post such comments, they will not be published because we value your privacy.

Keep the comments relevant to the topic as much as possible: More or less the same as above.

Impersonation: We have noticed a few instances where the same person was posting comments under different names. Comments like these will not be published and same is the case for comments being posted in the name of CNN-IBN employees or anyone else.

Comments in regional languages: We have nothing against them, in fact we were quite glad to see many of them. But the issue, as it was seen recently, is that we can't screen every comment that is in a language that we cannot understand, there are just far too many languages in this country for that. Moreover, this is an English language website, so it is understandable if we cannot allocate resources to tackle all the regional languages.

From now on, unless we can find someone who can read and translate what a comment, in a language other than English, says, we will not publish it. It is not a comfortable decision for us to take, but allowing comments to go live on the website without knowing what it actually means has already led to considerable abuse and much heartache for us.

Disrupt an ongoing conversation/debate: Commenting "But player 'x' being left out is more important than this" on a thread about something totally different like a Rath Yatra or the nuclear issue qualifies as unwanted disruption. first published:April 24, 2006, 21:06 ISTlast updated:April 24, 2006, 21:06 IST
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