General Comment Policy

It has come to this: We are establishing a comment policy for The Young Folks.

We were able to go five years without creating any written rules for the online community that engages with our content. However, we noticed lately that our comment section is sadly in need of more frequent moderation because some people are forgetting their manners.

We kindly ask our readers to make note of The Young Folks’ General Comment Policy below.

First, thank you for taking the time to read our content and share your thoughts with us. If your comment does not immediately appear, do not worry. It may have been flagged for review, which could happen for a number of reasons (curse words, links, unverified email address, Disqus is being weird, etc.). Please keep that in mind before re-submitting your comment.

Your comment will be DELETED if it contains any of the following:

  • Personal Attacks/Name-Calling – If you attack the writer, another commenter, or even the subject(s) of the article, it will get deleted. They teach you not to name-call in Kindergarten. Same rules apply here.
  • Inappropriate/Offensive Jokes – We don’t care if we just can’t detect your “sarcasm” or understand your “sense of humor.” This is not the place to try out your shady stand-up routine.
  • Hate Speech – If you’re going to start your comment with “I’m not racist but…” Please leave and rethink your beliefs. Any kind of hate speech is treated with zero tolerance.
    • This also includes AGEIST comments. The website is called The YOUNG Folks for a reason. Many of our staff writers are teenagers or twenty-somethings. Don’t waste anyone’s time by calling us “amateurs” or saying we “don’t know anything” because we are “too young.”
  • Mocking/Hate-Reading – This isn’t constructive at all–for anyone. If you don’t like our content, please don’t read it.

Your account will be BANNED if you do any of the above things more than once. You get one warning, and that’s it.

The site owners and editors are in charge of moderating the comments at their discretion. We are not here to shut down conversations or violate your freedom of speech. (We welcome and appreciate constructive criticism.) The editors are here to help facilitate a smart and healthy online community for The Young Folks.  

If you see a comment that violates our rules: Do. Not. Engage. Please “flag” bad comments. We try to moderate the comments as often as possible, but sometimes, we may miss something. Flagging a comment brings it to our attention faster.

Finally, a big thank you to our readers who support us and help foster a great, opinionated online community. You guys are the real MVPs!

h/t  The Mary Sue’s Comment Policy for serving as a guide for ours