Comments Policy
Our Comments Community Standards
About our comments sections
The comments areas of Journal Media publications are open
forums for discussion on the stories that
impact our users. As such, Journal Media does not
moderate your comments, nor edit comments after
they are published.
It’s worth noting before you submit a comment that you will not
be offered an opportunity to edit it, so
think carefully before you post.
In order to maintain a lively and inclusive environment for
debate we ask all commenters to adhere to
community guidelines, outlined below.
How to see more comments you love, and fewer you don’t
This is your comments community and we want you to feel
comfortable and safe here. We have created a number
of features to allow you to read more from those commenters you
enjoy and reduce your exposure to those
whose comments you find less useful.
You can access these by clicking on the down arrow which appears
on the right hand side of every comment.
I want to reward good commenting
behaviour
If you have enjoyed a particular comment or commenter’s
contribution, you have the option to:
- Give the individual comment an immediate ‘thumbs-up’
- Enter the dropdown menu and choose ‘promote commenter’ to
see this community member’s contributions more
often in your comment threads
I want to see less of a commenter I don’t
enjoy
Using the dropdown menu on a particular comment, you can
- Hide the comment so it disappears from your view
- Mute a commenter entirely so that you will no longer see
their contributions
I want to alert TheJournal.ie to defamatory
or offensive comments
Journal Media does not remove comments because we disagree
with the sentiment or opinions being
expressed. However, there are a number of ways in which you can
alert us to comments which you believe are
deeply offensive or are defamatory towards an individual or
individuals.
Using the dropdown menu, you can:
- Flag a comment as defamatory.
- Report a comment as offensive. You will be asked to give
your reasons for believing that it flouts the
community commenting guidelines
Feedback when you are writing a comment
We have partnered with a Google’s Jigsaw programme
Perspective
to help identify whether a comment could be perceived as “toxic”
to a constructive discussion.
This programme uses machine-learning models to score the
perceived impact a comment might have on a
conversation - we then supply you with this real-time feedback
before you submit your comment. The intention
is to give you time to reword or reconsider your comment before
submission so that you can make your best
possible contribution to the conversation.
"Toxicity" scores also help our system to identify and downgrade
comments which contain elements – foul
language, generalised abuse – that have previously been flagged
as a block to good debate.
Our commenting community guidelines
The intention of all Journal Media comments sections is to
provide a platform for intelligent,
productive and entertaining debate.
We reserve the right to remove without notification comments
which are flagged and found in breach of our
guidelines. Users who indulge in particularly egregious
commenting behaviour may be permanently barred
from further participation in conversations. We cannot enter
into correspondence about deletions or
bans.
Please familiarise yourself with these standards to ensure
continued participation in our commenting
community.
Play the ball, not the player
Do not make personal remarks about the author of a story, about
individuals mentioned in stories, or about
other commenters. We encourage committed and passionate debate,
but ad-hominem insults or insinuations are
not part of this.
Be the voice of reason
If all commenters agreed with each other, a comments section
would be a dull and unenlightening space. But
there are ways to phrase dissent without resorting to foul
language, incivility and SHOUTING. Even if you
believe what another commenter is saying is unreasonable,
express that in a reasonable fashion. Respect each
other as human beings.
No hate speech
Do not make comments which are racist, sexist, homophobic,
offensive on the grounds of religion, nationality
or demographic group. Do not make comments which are threatening
or harassing or which could be perceived as
such.
Do not post defamatory content
Users who are found to have posted defamatory content on any Journal
Media comments section will have
their commenting privileges withdrawn.
Stay on topic
Of course we want discussion to be as wide-ranging as possible,
and we understand that conversations can take
unexpected turns. But we’d like to make our comments areas a
place for people to talk about the topic in
front of them. Resorting to generalisations or dragging the
comments off on a tangent that is not pertinent
is boring and repetitive and kills insightful debate.
Don’t be a troll
Having a different viewpoint to other commenters or holding views
that are not palatable to all-comers is not
trolling if those views are sincerely held. However, don’t be
provocative just for the sake of it. Equally,
if you feel someone else is being deliberately provocative,
don’t respond – it only encourages them. If you
feel strongly that comments made by another user are deeply
offensive as outlined in these guidelines, let
us know by reporting the comment in the dropdown menu detailed
at the top of this document.
Safeguard personal information
Don’t post sensitive personal information or the personal details
of others in our comments section. Be
privacy- and safety-mindful at all times.
This is not a marketplace
We welcome links in our comments sections which add context or
extra information to the debate at hand. Do
not use comments to promote commercial products or services.
Contacting the author of a story:
Please be aware that the authors and reporters of articles and
stories on Journal Media publications
do not monitor the comments underneath their work. Please do not
use the comments space to notify us of
technical or editorial errors, or to make offensive, insulting
or personal remarks to or about the author of
a story or comment.
Your constructive criticisms are always welcome, but we would ask
you to use the “Send a Tip/Correction”
button at the end of every story, or email the author
directly.
We want our website to be a place where everyone can join an open
and civilised debate. Please note that Journal
Media cannot endorse or stand by the accuracy,
truthfulness or reliability of any material posted by
users in the comments space. Statements made by users of Journal
Media publications only reflect the
views of that user, and are not representative of the views of
the Journal Media, or any of its
editorial teams.
While we do not and cannot review every comment, we reserve the
right to remove any we deem unacceptable
without notification. We reserve the right to block at our
discretion users who are in breach of these
guidelines.
have your say