Commenting Guidelines

As stipulated in our User Agreement, by submitting content to NPI through any of our comment or contact forms, you hereby grant the Northwest Progressive Institute a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable, and perpetual license (with the right to sublicense) to store, reproduce, modify, adapt, and distribute the content, as well as perform and display it in whole or in part, in any form, media or technology now known or later developed. You acknowledge that you remain the owner of the comments you submit and that you will be attributed as the creator.

If you believe that your comments have been modified in a manner that changes your intended meaning, you may request that your name be removed as the author.

You further agree to abide by the following guidelines which have been drawn up by the Northwest Progressive Institute to govern discussions.

  • Respect NPI’s User Agreement. Avoid posting any material that would be threatening, libelous, obscene, or otherwise unlawful.
  • Respect others’ privacy. Private contact information, such as home addresses, home telephone numbers, personal email addresses, etc. must remain private.
  • Stay on topic… no trolling. Help keep responses focused on the subject matter of the original post. Please flag and report comments left by others that attempt to hijack, redirect, or disrupt the discussion.
  • Remain composed and polite; no profanity. Profanity impairs honest debate and lowers the level of discourse. It’s not professional. It only feeds the efforts of those who are trying to engage in a culture war. When swearing matches erupt, that’s a victory for them, because meaningful two-way communication gets crippled.
  • Respect people’s preference for the manner in which they prefer to be referred. Racial epithets and slurs are not permitted under any circumstances.
  • Use standard formatting. Using ALL CAPS is equivalent to shouting. Like swearing maches, shouting matches effectively destroy discussion, resulting in noise instead of an exchange of ideas. Please don’t submit comments in all caps; we don’t want to have to lowercase them or delete them.
  • Remain true to the purpose of commentary: to communicate, and foster an exchange of ideas. Responses that contain nothing but advertising or promote commercial activities (in other words, comment spam) are not permitted.
  • No embedding. Responses may only contain text and hyperlinks. Responses may not include images, audio, video, tracking widgets, or any other objects.
  • Don’t cut and paste. Comments that consist of nothing but material copied from somewhere else are not permitted, regardless of whether permission has been obtained for reuse. Any excerpting must be brief, contain a link to the source or a usable citation, and be followed by original commentary.
  • Format links. Comments may not contain raw URL (uniform resource locators, or web addresses). URLs should be properly enclosed with <a> and </a> tags.
  • Do not impersonate others. Individuals who leave comments using names of other people will be first warned and then banned if a second violation occurs.
  • Choose an appropriate handle or screen name and use it consistently. Unacceptable screen names include “Anonymous”, names of historical figures, names of other persons (even if prefaced with the word “fake”) and anything derogatory or demeaning. Screen names that are not appropriate will be removed and substituted with the name of a random species of fish.

Our goal at NPI is to provide the insightful and informative commentary to readers. Our integrity is crucial for us to maintain credibility with our readers.

We will strive to ensure that all submitted comments respect these guidelines. There may be times when NPI staff decide that a comment must be edited so that it complies.

If so, the edited comment will be clearly marked. If NPI staff determine that a particular comment does not add to the discussion at hand, or cannot be edited in a manner consistent with the guidelines, the comment will not be published.

The single principle that defines all of the above guidelines is respect; respect for open discussion, respect for the privacy of others, and respect for the work of the Northwest Progressive Institute’s staff and guest contributors.