We looooove our blog comments — but we’re also very firm believers in the value of online civility and respectful conversation, and we’re all too aware that conversations online can quickly become catty and judgmental. While we fully support every reader having strong opinions, anything less than complete civility is unacceptable on all Offbeat Empire sites. Our comments are moderated carefully.
We reserve the right to delete or edit comments that strike us as:
* rude
* judgmental
* attacking
* baiting
* self-promotional
This doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t disagree with people here. You just need to do so constructively and with respect. You also need to do it with integrity, which means that if you want to be constructive, you better not hide behind an anonymous comment. We have a very itchy moderation trigger finger with anonymous commenters.
While we do our best to use sensitive and inclusive language on all Offbeat Empire sites and encourage our commenters to do the same, we ask that any concerns about the language used in a post be directed to us via email. Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. (More about this.)
We understand that this comment policy won’t be a good fit for everyone’s communication style — and we’re fine with that. Thankfully, it’s a great big internet out there, and we heartily encourage you to share your thoughts and opinions however you might like via your own blog or website, or on another site that matches your communication style.
Business-owner commenting policies
While we love having business owners involved in the discussions here on the Offbeat Empire, the comment section is NOT the place to promote your business. If you’d like to promote your business on our sites, you’re much better off joining us as a sponsor.
* Please do not use your business name anywhere in your comment — not as your name, not in the body of your comment, not anywhere. (Here’s why!) You may use your website in the URL field, but if you use a name like “Seattle Wedding Photographer” or “Affordable Wedding Dresses,” your comment will be deleted.
* Don’t leave meaningless comments. We see a lot of vendors who come and leave comments on dozens posts that say things like “Very unique!” “Love this!” or “Awesome wedding!” This is a half-step above spam, and we delete it.
Again: we understand these policies won’t be popular with all readers — and that’s fine! Thank goodness it’s a great big internet out there. 🙂
Offbeat Empire Commenting Policy by Ariel Meadow Stallings, Offbeat Bride is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.