Comment Policy

Introduction

AustinWeeklyNews.com is the gathering spot for people to talk and debate all things in Chicago's Austin and Garfield park neighborhoods. Welcome to the conversation.

You are essential to creating a vital and compelling discussion about everything from a local government's latest contretemps to a new restaurant in your neighborhood.

But as in any genuine conversation there are matters of manners and engagement to settle. Here are our expectations for participation.

• Stick to the topic. Threads work better when people aren't wandering all over creation. And make your points succinctly.

• Be nice. No one likes to be SHOUTED at. No one likes to be insulted. This is intended to be a strong and pointed conversation. But don't confuse rude with strong on this Web site.

• It is OK to offer comments - both positive and critical -- about local businesses. In fact our resource pages are designed to feature reader comments. However, in fairness, we ask that if you have a specific frustration with a business that you contact the business owner directly. In most cases an e-mail link to the business is included on the resource page.

How do comments work? First of all they are posted live. This adds to your responsibility for what you are writing. These are your opinions. You own the facts those opinions are based on. We encourage our commenters to identify themselves and to use the Facebook Verified feature at the top of the home page to add legitimacy to their identification.

Obviously you may not post any comment that is obscene, slanderous or commercial in nature. You may not use language that abuses or discriminates on the basis of race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability or nationality.

Fellow posters are encouraged to flag comments they find inappropriate. If you have a concern, e-mail us at comments@austinweeklynews.com. We will review those posts and remove any post which violates the civil spirit we are nurturing here.

Welcome and join in.

Terms of Service

AustinWeeklyNews.com is a community website owned and operated by Wednesday Journal, Inc. We welcome your comments on our sites with the expectation that you will abide by the following terms:

• The individual posting a comment is responsible for the content and the accuracy of the comment. Comments posted do not necessarily reflect the position of Wednesday Journal, Inc.

• Profanity of any type, obscenity or pornography are not permitted.

• Language which abuses or discriminates on the basis of race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability or nationality is not permitted.

• Threats, harassment or advocating the threatening or harassing of another person is not permitted.

• Solicitations or advertisements are not permitted.

• Links to personal websites are not permitted.

• Potentially libelous or slanderous comments are not permitted.

• Comments that are invasive of the privacy of another person or entity are not permitted.

• Knowingly posting information that a reader knows to be in incorrect is not permitted.

• Comments may not infringe on any patent, copyright, trademark, service mark, trade secret or other intellectual property.

• Comments which, in whole or in part, disrupt the normal functioning of AustinWeeklyNews.com are not permitted.

• Quoting, in whole or in part, another comment which violated our Terms of Service is not permitted.

• Impersonating any person or entity, or falsely misrepresenting an affiliation with any other person or entity is not permitted.

• Comments which for reasons not listed above fail to contribute to the greater community discussion will be removed. We reserve the right but assume no obligation to remove any comment which we feel violates our Terms of Service.

Readers of our site are empowered to report concerns over a particular posting. Send an e-mail to us at comments@austinweeklynews.com. Comments will, at the discretion of our staff, either be left on the site or removed. We do not edit comments for content. We reserve the right to close comments on a particular article or thread at our discretion. In the interest of maintaining this site's use as a historical or archival record, Wednesday Journal, Inc. reserves the right to decline a request that content or comments be taken down from the site.

We reserve the right to reveal all information submitted to us, including IP addresses, in the event of legal action arising from any comment. Wednesday Journal will not disclose email addresses or IP addresses obtained through comment submission to advertisers, with the exception of legal action arising from a comment. We reserve the right to ban any reader from posting comments to our site using information submitted to us, including IP addresses.

In submitting a comment to AustinWeeklyNews.com a reader automatically grants Wednesday Journal, Inc. royalty free, perpetual, irrevocable, world-wide, non-exclusive rights to use, reproduce, modify, publish and display your comment in whole or in part in any venue.

Comments posted on this website can be found through search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

These same policies apply to any presence of a Wednesday Journal, Inc. property on any social media network including Facebook and Twitter.

Wednesday Journal, Inc. reserves the right to change the Terms of Service at any time.