Community Guidelines

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Account
Comments
Classifieds

Account

Account Basics

Your Northern Ontario Business account allows you to participate in Commenting, Auctions, Contests and other features in our online community.  Your account must be created using a valid email account, and only one account per person is permitted.

Your Northern Ontario Business account is a privilege, not a right.  If Northern Ontario Business suspects your account is fraudulent, or is being used to harass, defame, spam, or is breaking laws, or is breaking our rules, your account may be temporarily or permanently suspended.

Never forget that even behind a username and without providing any personal information, you are still NOT anonymous online.  Northern Ontario Business or your Internet Provider can and will be subpoenaed for your information should you be caught defaming someone or conducting illegal activities online.

Account Security

You are solely responsible for actions taken under your account, and you should not disclose your login information to anyone else.  If you suspect your account has been compromised, change your password immediately.  If you are unable to access your account, use the “Forgot Password” feature to have a reset link emailed to you.

Data Ownership

When you submit data (including writing, photography, video, etc.) to Northern Ontario Business’s platform, you retain ownership of it.  By submitting this data to Northern Ontario Business, however, you grant Northern Ontario Business unlimited use of that data, including republishing, use in news coverage, etc.

Abuse

Northern Ontario Business in its sole discretion may terminate any type of submission (Comment, Auction Bid, Contest Entry, etc.) immediately and without notice if:

We have reason to believe that you have violated the spirit or the letter of the Northern Ontario Business Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.
We have reason to believe that your account has been compromised or is fraudulent.
We have reason to believe that you have violated or have tried to violate the rights of others.

Please help us keep Northern Ontario Business an enjoyable and positive experience.  If you see a listing that violates our Community Guidelines, please contact help@Northern Ontario Business.

General Disclaimer

The views expressed by our audience in the Comments do not necessarily reflect or represent the views of Northern Ontario Business, its staff or contributors.  

Northern Ontario Business reserves the right to change these Guidelines at any time.

These guidelines have been created by members of our editorial staff, including the publisher, managing editor, reporters, and members of the community, incorporating feedback from our moderators and users.

Comments

The online community at Northern Ontario Business exists to provide a platform for people to express their views on the stories making news headlines in our community. This community is shaped by the people who have a voice here. It is everyone’s responsibility to make it a place for intelligent, insightful and entertaining conversation. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, so please debate the issues fairly and be constructive. In short, no profanity, no insults.

Features

Replies to comments: you can reply to other users’ comments by using the ‘reply’ icon under each comment.
Upvote:  upvote or “thumbs up” a comment if you like or agree with it.
Downvote:  downvote or “thumbs down” a comment if you dislike or disagree with it.

Comment Posting

You must be logged in to your account in order to post a comment.  To access the comments page of an article, click the POST COMMENT button at the bottom of an article. Type your comment into the box and when you are satisfied with the content, click ‘submit’.

Moderation

Our commenting platform is moderated by staff and the community of readers. This approach aims to elevate the tone of conversations. If a problematic comment slips through moderation, users can alert our moderators by flagging the comment.

Certain subjects — race, immigration, religion and sexual identity among them — unfortunately attract a high number of offensive and abusive comments that could be potentially libelous for this news organization. For these reasons, we may choose to close comments preemptively.

When and why are comments closed?

• Legal reasons: If comments breach a publication ban when the story involves a trial, crime or other legal case, or when comments contain information that could put us at legal risk, comments will not be opened at the time the story is posted. An accompanying message will also be posted explaining why comments have been closed.
• Abuse: If comments regarding a particularly contentious issue are offensive, vulgar, racist and/or libelous, comments will be closed. An accompanying message will be posted explaining that comments on the story "have been closed because an overwhelming number of readers were making statements that could be considered offensive, libelous, untrue or vulgar."

What kinds of comments are removed?

• Personal attacks: Name calling, threats and verbal abuse directed at another individual will not be tolerated. Comments will be removed. The offending commenter may be banned from commenting in the future.
• Profanity: Keep it clean. Opinions can be expressed without foul language.
• Spam: Messages promoting commercial entities or competing media sites will be removed.
• Trolling: Commenters will be banned if there is an attempt to derail a conversation or post inflammatory comments. Please stay relevant and on topic.
• Racism, sexism and other discrimination: Attacking an individual or group of people for their gender, gender identity or expression, race, culture or belief(s) will not be tolerated.
• Illegal activities: Libellous statements or comments that include false or unsubstantiated allegations will be removed.
• Offensive usernames: If your username includes words that are offensive or abusive, your account will be blocked.

Deleting Comments

You can delete your comment at any time by clicking the ‘delete’ icon just below your comment.

Commenter Identities

We encourage readers who post comments to use their real name, but verifying commenters are using their actual legal name when posting would be onerous and ineffective. Readers are encouraged to flag comments by those using names that appear to be fake. When our moderators encounter a name that appears not to be real, a message will be sent to the commenter advising them their account appears to be fake and advising them the account has been banned.

Do reporters and writers read and respond to comments?

Journalists will respond to queries and/or concerns when time and situation allows.

Where’s my Comment?

Try to sort comments by ‘newest first’, your comment should be at the top. If your comment has disappeared it is likely that it was rejected by moderators or by a moderator because it violated our guidelines.