Moderation policy

Commenting on Wonkhe is tied to your Wonkhe account. Comments are posted under your real name, with your role and organisation shown alongside – this is a professional community, and standing behind what you write is part of the deal.

• First comments are checked. Your first comment on Wonkhe is held for review by the team before it appears; once you have a comment approved, later ones normally publish immediately.
• Discussions close. Comments are open for a fortnight from an article’s publication, after which the thread becomes a read-only record.
• One level of replies. You can reply to a comment, but not to a reply – threads stay readable, not nested arguments.
• Anyone can report. Every comment carries a report link that flags it to the moderators.

Comments will normally be approved for publication as long as they:

• Respect other commenters and individuals – comments should not be malicious or offensive, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character;
• Don’t incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, sexuality or any other personal characteristic;
• Don’t include swearing, hate speech or obscenity;
• Don’t publicly reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers or email addresses;
• Don’t break the law – including libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaching copyright;
• Don’t comment or give details in relation to individual cases;
• Are reasonably concise, and don’t constitute spamming;
• Don’t advertise commercial products and services – you may mention relevant products and services where they support your comment;
• Don’t impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation;
• Are in English – we don’t currently have the resource to moderate comments in other languages;
• Are on-topic – comments should relate to the article they sit under;
• Don’t contain unrelated or inappropriate links to external sites.

Moderators reserve the right to hold, remove or suspend comments at any time. Where a comment is not published for a reason other than the rules above, we will endeavour to reply by email explaining why and inviting appropriate changes so the comment can be reconsidered.

Accounts that repeatedly break these rules may have commenting suspended. Comments appear on the site for discussion, and may or may not receive a reply from the team – to contact us directly, use the email addresses on our contact page.

You are legally responsible for what you write. By submitting a comment you undertake to indemnify us against any liability arising from it, including breach of confidentiality or copyright, or any obscene, defamatory or otherwise actionable statement you may make.

If you are aged 16 or under, you may want to talk to a parent or guardian about the ideas on this website and the opinions you want to express before commenting.