Community

 Community Guidelines

At Uncle Sam's Guide we pride ourselves on polite and friendly comments. Uncle Sam's Guide has a thriving user community and actively encourages commenting. We are dedicated to this community and strive to maintain a respectful, engaging and informative conversation.

Towards that end, we have general guidelines for commenting. They are enforced 24/7 by a moderating system that features a small team of staff. Please read and understand the following questions/guidelines before you post a comment.

If your comments consistently or intentionally make this community a less civil and enjoyable place to be, you and your comments will be excluded from it.

Uncle Sam's Guide promotes a receptive, transparent and civil atmosphere for comments and users. Critical, in-depth and intelligent discussions and debates are encouraged. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to voice their opinion regardless of identity, politics, ideology, religion or agreement with other community members, the topic of the documentary or staff members as long as those opinions are respectful and constructively add to the conversation.

However, this community does not tolerate direct or indirect attacks, name-calling or insults, nor does it tolerate intentional attempts to derail, hijack, troll or bait others into an emotional response. These types of comments will be removed from the community where warranted. Individuals who consistently or intentionally post these types of comments will be warned and, if necessary, excluded from the community.

This community is a safe space.

We strongly believe that Uncle Sam's Guide should be a safe space for individuals, groups and their ideas. As such, violent and hostile language or calls for violence and hostility are not welcome here. If you directly or indirectly threaten the physical or mental well being of a member of this community, or an individual or group who is the subject of an article, you will be removed immediately.

If a credible threat is made against an individual or group, not only will it be removed but it is likely that it will be reported to law enforcement agencies and we will cooperate with them to any extent requested.

Personal identifiable information should never be posted to Uncle Sam's Guide comments section. It never turns out well for anyone. If you see any threats, harassment or personal information trolling please report it quickly.

1. Why isn’t my comment showing?

To maintain a civil atmosphere, the moderation team may read comments before they are displayed to other users. If this is the case, you may see your comment pending approval. Approval times can vary depending on the site-wide comment load, so please be patient – we will get to all comments as quickly as possible.

Most likely this is because you have used a word or phrase (usually profanity, insults, degradation, etc.) that is flagged for moderation. If you use such words, your comment will go in to a moderation queue for approval. Additionally, if you quote an URL (web address) in your comment, it will also go in to the moderation queue. This doesn’t mean your comment won’t show up (unless it’s too rude or spam) – it just means that we need to approve it first.

2. Can I use bold, italic, etc.?

Yes. You can use a subset of standard HTML for your comments. NOTE: you can not use forum markup (this usually has square brackets, like [url] – this is not standard HTML). What you can use is:

<b>bold text</b>
<i>italic text</i>
<u>underline text</u>

But please don’t overuse or misuse the markup.

3. How long can a comment be?

We don’t have a limit on the size of the comments, but try not to post very large chunks of non-paragraphed text. Usually your point can be made in just a few sentences. If a comment is longer than that, it’s likely that most people will not bother to read it at all.

4. How do I post a link?

I’m sorry but at this point posting links in the comment section is not allowed. Comments are supposed to be well-thought-out reviews and arguments about the documentaries, not heated debates rife with links.

5. Can I use a signature?

No. Do not put signatures at the end of your comments – we can see from the comment what your username is and we don’t allow readers to use the comments for advertising.

6. Can I carry on personal chats in the comments?

No – this becomes very tedious for other readers. Please stay on the topic.

7. Do I have to write in English?

Yes. You absolutely must write in English. We will delete non-English comments as soon as we see them. The same goes for “text-message” speech – we want everyone to understand the comments.

8. How do I write a good comment?

You write a good comment by not insulting others, by not using CAPS LOCK, by not using repetitive punctuation, and by sticking to the argument if you don’t agree with someone. Remember, the minute you insult a person in a debate, you lose.

9. Can I preach in my comments?

No. Uncle Sam's Guide is not your personal pulpit. You can quote Scriptures, etc. in your comments if they are pertinent to the documentary (DO NOT EXAGGERATE) – but you absolutely may not use the site as a source for conversions.

10. Can I discuss other topics in comments?

No – you must stick to the topic – when comments go so far off the topic they cause people to lose interest and they add nothing to the documentary. Of primary importance is the fact that the comments are meant to enhance readers time on the site – not cause them to get bored with idle chit-chat.

11. Can I use multiple nicknames?

No please don’t. Represent yourself with one name and don’t delude the readers by commenting with several names. If we find any of those we’ll delete the comments or we’ll associate them with one name.

Every person’s opinion is valuable and unique. Pretending to be someone else removes that unique value from you or from others. Don’t misrepresent yourself or others, spread mis-information, create multiple accounts or “astroturf”. If you do, you will make the community a less enjoyable and valuable place to be and will be removed when we see it.

12. I want to remove/delete all of my comments I made so far?

I’m sorry but that can’t be done. We can’t remove hundreds of comments from the site, because all the context and the meaning of the past conversations will be lost.

Thanks for sticking to these rules – they make the site much more enjoyable for all!