Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The Los Angeles Jewish Journal posts the following terms of service for its message board. I think they're on to something. Several sites I used to frequent, including Jerusalem.com and the Washington Post's "On Faith," would benefit from similar standards.
Our Rules: Tolerance and Respect
- Mostly it's about community, discussing political, ethical, social and moral questions, articles published on JewishJournal.com, Los Angeles news, events here and in Israel, and plain old schmoozing.
- If you are new to message boards, this link has a good introduction to the 'netiquette' of message boards.
- Prosyletizing is unacceptable. Please exercise tolerance and respect toward other participants whose views may differ from your own, and please remain courteous at all times.
- If you are here to "educate" us about how the Shoah did not happen, Jesus is the Moshiach, Israel has no right to exist, or that Zionism is racism, etc., no thanks. You are not welcome. Go away.
- Make the subject line as descriptive as possible about the message content.
- We are here to discuss subjects pertinent to American Jews; off-topic posts will be deleted.
- This is not an advertising service. We do not allow posts containing any form of advertisement.
- Copyrighted material is not allowed.
- Profanity is not acceptable. Ad-hominem arguments and name-calling are not welcome. We dislike lashon hara.
Content posted on our message boards which violates our standards is routinely removed without further comment.
Labels: discussion, netiquette, proselytizing
