Commenting sections facilitated by news organizations are designed for readers to connect with one another and the local journalists who serve them.
We encourage healthy, productive debate, but as in any community, we strive to avoid a hostile environment.
Anyone can view the comments, but you must be a registered user and/or paying subscriber to a McClatchy news publication to be permitted to comment. You must be logged in to either to comment.
Be considerate.
Be tolerant.
Challenge the argument, not the person.
Respect others and their points of view.
Stay on topic.
Be concise.
Use sarcasm carefully. Tone is hard to decipher online.
Don’t write what would normally be considered offensive or demeaning to others.
Use your own words, or words you have the right to use with credit to the author.
In short, the comments are a forum for civil discussion.
We are committed to providing a welcoming and safe environment. We expect that you will refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech.
Harassment includes, but is not limited to: deliberate intimidation; stalking; sustained or willful disruption of talks or other events; use of sexual or discriminatory imagery, comments, or jokes; and unwelcome sexual attention.
We do not tolerate any type of hostility or insulting behavior. And we are serious about moderating the comments. If you violate our guidelines, you could be temporarily suspended. Repeat offenders will be banned from commenting.
You should feel comfortable sharing your experiences and opinions in the comments, but the following is prohibited and will result in your comment being deleted and a suspension or ban:
Personal attacks or threats of any kind
Blanket allegations against individuals
Questioning the motives behind other people’s posts or comments
Attempts to deliberately inflame or disrupt the conversation
Offensive language, including profanity, sexism, bigotry, racism, vulgarity, sexual innuendo, name calling, slurs, sweeping stereotypes
Comments on someone’s appearance, clothing, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity or sexual preference, intelligence, physical or mental capacity
Pornography
Bullying
Copyright infringement
Impersonation of someone else
SHOUTING (in all caps) or hostility
Marketing or spam
Comments that are false, libelous, off-topic, obscene or that would invade another’s privacy
Posting of anyone’s personal information such as a home or work address, phone number, or email address
We do not edit the comments. They will appear as submitted or not at all. You will have 2 minutes to edit a comment that you author. Afterward, the comment will appear as submitted and cannot be changed or deleted.
Moderating comments is not censorship — it’s a necessary method for ensuring that our community is inclusive and fair. As with our news coverage, we strive to be nonpartisan in our moderating. Our decisions are based on each submission’s adherence to our guidelines.
Violation of any of these guidelines orour terms of service may result in a warning, temporary suspension or permanent ban, at the discretion of McClatchy. Community managers and moderators have final say on interpretation of violating our community guidelines, and on all decisions resulting in a warning, suspension, and/or ban.
In order to become a member of our commenting community, you must register, agree to ourterms of service and comply with these commenting guidelines.
If you see any of these things happening in our commenting communities, please flag it using the “Report” button and it will be reviewed by the moderation team.
Comments that receive three or more flags from the community will be automatically removed.
The report button is located on the bottom right corner of each comment.
In addition to members of our staff moderating comments on our website, we are using an auto-moderation tool that watches for blatant violations of our community guidelines, including racism, profanity and threats. It disables those comments before they appear on the site.
We are constantly working to make the auto-moderation smarter, but it may sometimes interpret language or the meaning of certain words incorrectly and disable the comment. Our staff is keeping an eye on the tool and will reactivate any comments that have been incorrectly disabled by the auto-moderation system.
This story was originally publishedApril 30, 2024 at 1:50 PM.
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