Here at The Dialog  we value open and frank discussion on our articles and topics that our readers are interested in engaging in a dialogue about. As a way to help ensure that discussion is of the highest quality possible we have some simple guidelines for commenting that we expect people commenting on our website to follow.

No hate speech

Any material that attempts to incite violence or hatred against individuals or groups, particularly based on race, national origin, ethnicity, colour, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability will be removed.

No personal attacks

While discussion can be passionate, please keep your points to the ideas and do not personally attack writers, readers or any individual. Comments that violate this will be removed.

Use your name

We believe that people should be free to voice their opinions in a public discussion, but along with that freedom is comes the responsibility to be accountable for your comments. This is why your name and email address is required to make a comment on our website. Anonymous comments or those with fake names will be removed.

Be relevant 

Keep discussion relevant to the article that you are commenting on and the discussion that is happening.

Be understanding

It’s easy to be misunderstood as things like tone and sarcasm are hard to read into  comments. Please be understanding of each other and try and clarify you points without becoming aggressive. Even if you feel that you are not being treated fairly by someone be the better person and keep the discussion friendly and take the time to explain your point if you feel someone isn’t getting it.

Help us!

We need your help to keep the discussion going in a positive direction. If you see a comment that you feel violates our guidelines please contact us and let us know. We can’t be watching the website at all times so it’s up to you to help us keeping our community clean.

Thanks to The Guardian whose Community standards and participation guidelines inspired ours.