Thursday, January 13, 2011

NOLA.com Community Rules

Apparently NOLA.com is not only a "community" but one with "rules". The following are prohibited on NOLA.com: "obscene, indecent, hateful, offensive, defamatory, abusive, harassing or profane material"; "personal attacks"; "anyone's telephone number, street address. or any other personal information"; "an e-mail address belonging to another person." The rules are summed up as follows: "Lively debate and opposing opinions are welcome, but please behave courteously and responsibly."

The rules articulate a right, but, significantly, not a duty, to enforce these rules by reviewing, editing, moving, or deleting content. There is no indication here whether users who routinely violate these rules can be permanently removed from the forum (by having their IP address blocked) or what other measures the site takes to enforce these rules

Here are the "Community Rules" posted at http://www.nola.com/aboutus/index.ssf?/forums/rules.html:

Community Rules

The following Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site, including, but not limited to, all text, photographs, audio files and video files. These Community Rules are intended to highlight and supplement some of the terms and conditions set forth in our User Agreement. You should review the entire User Agreement to understand the terms and conditions that apply to you. For complete information on how this site handles the personal information you provide to us, please read the Privacy Policy. Your use of the site, and/or submission of any content, constitutes your agreement to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy.
This site is not responsible for any content you submit. We reserve the right, but undertake no duty, to review, edit, move, or delete any content submitted by users, in our sole discretion, without notice, including but not limited to the following reasons:

  • Do not post obscene, indecent, hateful, offensive, defamatory, abusive, harassing or profane material.
  • Do not post junk mail, pyramid schemes, chain letters or advertisements.
  • Do not engage in personal attacks.
  • Vulgar and insulting nicknames will be removed. Nicknames attempting to impersonate other users will be removed.
  • Do not post anyone's telephone number, street address. or any other personal information.
  • Do not post an e-mail address belonging to another person.
  • Do not post information that encourages criminal activity of any kind, or any statements that may give rise to civil liability.
  • If you post a link to another site, please provide a brief explanation of where the link goes as a courtesy to other users.
  • Do not post copyrighted material, including newsletter items, newspaper articles, excerpts from books, music, poems, photographs, video files or any other material, unless you own the copyright to that material, or have written permission to post it.
  • Do not attempt to impersonate other users, site staff or any other person.
  • Do not post the same message in multiple locations on the site.
  • Lively debate and opposing opinions are welcome, but please behave courteously and responsibly.
  • Submissions regarding the administration or moderation of forum posts or comments are not permitted and will be removed. If you have a issue or question regarding our administrative policies or actions, Contact Interactivity Management.
  • Keep your messages on topic for the particular discussion you are involved in.
  • Do not use multiple account nicknames in one discussion. Do not answer your own posts using another nickname.

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