Commenting Policy

The Riverside Brookfield High School Clarion staff intends for its newspaper commenting section to serve as an open forum for the free exchange of opinions and ideas related to its stories.  It intends for this forum to be open to all commentators, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, or sexual orientation.  The Clarion staff strongly supports critical commentary.

At the same time, the Clarion staff is also aware of their role within a “Character Counts” school and a “Community of Caring.”  It intends that the stories and dialogue in its paper serve as a model supporting the six pillars of trust, responsibility, respect, fairness, compassion, and citizenship.

To that end, all comments submitted to the Clarion are subject to the following policies before publication:

• All comments are moderated.  They will be viewed and approved by the editor-in-chief and/or sponsor before publication.
• The Clarion staff encourages readers to identify themselves in comments though they accept anonymous comments.  If a reader does identify himself in a comment, the staff will make every effort to verify the comment with the identified poster before publishing it.
• When a reader submits a comment, he is asked for a valid e-mail address and an identifying name.  While the Clarion does log IP addresses of commenters, this information as well as e-mail addresses will be kept private.  However, if a commenter makes a deliberate threat towards any other individual or institution, this information will be shared with school administration and local authorities.
• Comments and the students who make them are subject to the same rules of Acceptable Use under which the school operates (see Acceptable Use Policy).
• Comments that are irrelevant/completely off the topic of the story within which they originate will not be published.
• Comments that make factual allegations which cannot be proven and/or are not part of common knowledge will not be published.
• Comments whose sole purpose is to personally attack or degrade without making a factual argument will not be published.
• Comments which contain “hate speech” will not be published.
• The Clarion staff takes its work professionally but also asks that its readership realize it is a student newspaper.  To that end, comments whose sole purpose is to criticize grammatical errors within a story will not be published.
• The Clarion staff reserves the right to edit comments for length and content.  If a comment is sent which is partially inappropriate due to content (see above), the Clarion staff will attempt to publish the portion of the comment which is appropriate.
• Clarion staff are prohibited from responding directly to comments.  The exception will be “editor/sponsor notes” where we seek to correct or clarify inaccurate information.
• The views and opinions expressed in comments do not, in any way, reflect the views of the Clarion staff and/or Riverside Brookfield High School as an institution.