Commenting Guidelines 

Seven Days allows commenting to allow the general public to provide feedback and/or more information. However, we moderate comments in order to ensure a civil and intelligent environment. Treat the comments section as you would a town meeting, dinner party or classroom discussion. Please follow these guidelines:

Be respectful. We encourage debate, but it must be respectful, civil and calm. Address the argument, not the person. Don’t resort to name-calling, bickering or personal attacks. Don’t be mean-spirited.

Be constructive. Contribute to the discussion. Keep on topic. Don’t hijack the comments to further your personal agenda.

Be reasonable. Sweeping generalizations of any group or individual based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or age won’t be tolerated. Neither will comparisons to Nazis. Calls to violence are never acceptable. Also, comment moderation is not censorship.

Be honest. Don’t post false information, and don’t post rumors or hearsay. If you don’t know it to be true, please don’t say it. Please cite your sources when making claims.

Be yourself. We encourage, but don’t require, the use of real names. Having multiple accounts is not allowed. Impersonating other people is not allowed. Use your real email address when registering — we won’t publish it, share it or add it to a mailing list without your consent.

Be brief. Comments are limited to 300 words.

Also, please do not use the comments to advertise products, services, events or ideas. Our sales team is happy to help you reach Seven Days' readers. Find out more about advertising.

And a post-script pertaining to reviews: When leaving a review, please review actual experiences at the location. If you haven’t actually been there, don’t review it. Be specific, but don’t criticize employees of the establishment by name.

Comments that do not follow the guidelines will be removed. If a user is a habitual or egregious offender, they will be banned from commenting on the site.

A few other caveats:

Our moderators are human. We don’t pre-screen comments, so oftentimes, you’ll see a comment before we do. We don’t work at all hours, and we do our best to have lives outside of the office. We’ll do our best to respond in as timely a fashion as is possible. In that spirit...

If you see something amiss, speak up! If you see a comment that you think is a violation of our commenting policy, click the “report” button next to it. Again, we’re not always on the computer, and we’ve got lots of other jobs besides watching the comments, so your help is appreciated.

Comment moderation is not a precise science. Comments will be taken down if they do not follow the guidelines above. In most cases, this a judgement call on the part of our editors and moderators.

Got a question about our guidelines? Drop us a line!