TOU

Thank you for visiting our blog. We are committed to allowing freedom of expression for our members, including maintaining a safe space for people with opposing views to express themselves. Like the real world, our member base is very diverse. There are people with vastly different views regarding the environment, animal rights, politics, human rights, and many other topics that you will find on our blog. We see this diversity and variety as a real strength, and see dialog and debate as an integral part of the educational process as well as an important tool in exploring different sides of complex issues. We ask that all of our members respect this diversity, and the diverse views and beliefs held by others on our site.

All commenters of our site must agree to and abide by the following Code of Conduct for our blog:

Respect and courtesy – All commenters are entitled to xpress their views and beliefs in a safe environment without feeling attacked. 

Commenters may not infringe on the rights of any other person to express themselves in a safe environment. This policy includes:

Any harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, hateful, or otherwise objectionable posts.

Any posts which are invasive of another’s privacy.

Name calling or otherwise attacking the person posting rather than the content of the post. Disagreement is encouraged, but you should only comment on the argument or position taken, never against the person posting their opinion or belief.

Any racial or ethnic slurs or insults relating to the mental, physical or intellectual qualities of any member.

Vulgarity – All commenters agree to not post text that is vulgar, obscene, graphically violent or sexual in nature.

Violent action – No commenter may use our blog to advocate violence against others, even in jest.

Illegal activities – No commenter may use our services to promote illegal actions or to instigate illegal activity from other commenters.

‘Hate messages’ – No commenter may post ‘hate’ messages. This includes any messages that may incite violence toward someone because of their age, disability, gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation, including:

Advocating violence or aggression against persons because they are a member of any of the above categories.

Implying or stating that members of one of these categories ‘deserve’ or ‘earned’ death or violence towards them.

Degrading or insulting whole classes of people, or using such statements to justify actions taken against them.

Privacy – No commenter may use our site to collect personal information about other members, or to post such information for others to view. This includes telephone numbers, addresses, etc.

Stalking – No commenter may stalk or otherwise harass others on our site.

Copyrights – No commenter may post or otherwise distribute information or content which infringes on a copyright, patent trademark or other proprietary right of another party.

Disruptive posts – No commenter may disrupt the blog by posting repeatedly with the same information or by otherwise preventing the use of these blog by other commenter.

Commercial solicitation / SPAM / Bulk mailings – No commenter may post or otherwise make available any unsolicited or unauthorized commercial advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of solicitation.

Impersonation – No commenter may impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a official or group forum leader; or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.

Minors – Commenters may not post or otherwise take action that endangers or harms a minor in any way.

Problems and abuse reporting - Do not respond to abusive posts or otherwise engage in the furthering of inappropriate topics and posts.

Defenders of Wildlife reserves the right to remove any comments for violation of any of the above terms of use based solely on the discretion of the blog administrators.