Comment Policy

Our Comment Policy helps ensure free flow of ideas while encouraging courtesy for fellow commenters. If you have any questions about what may or may not be permissible, or if you would like to dispute a comment modification or deletion, simply contact us. Biofortified’s editors reserve the right to modify or remove any comment for any reason, but we do this as infrequently as possible.

If this is your first time commenting on the Biofortified Blog, your first comment will automatically be held in moderation. This helps us identify spam. Comments with more than 2 links are also automatically held in moderation.

Comment guidelines

  1. License: Comments posted are assumed to be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
  2. Responsibility: Comment authors are ultimately responsible for the content of their own contributions. A comment remaining on the Biofortified Blog does not indicate endorsement or agreement by the post author or the Board of Directors.
  3. Politeness: Civil comments are most likely to foster meaningful discussion, so refrain from being rude. We may edit comments to restore politeness.
  4. Trolling: We do not tolerate deliberate antagonization of authors or other commenters. We will remove troll comments, and we may ban the commenter.
  5. Attacks: We do not tolerate violent statements or threats of harm. You may question ideas but we will remove comments that include personal attacks, and we may ban the commenter.
  6. Illegal Content: We may modify or remove any comments that include illegal content. Commenters are responsible for any illegal content they post, including libel.
  7. Length Limit: Comments should rarely, if ever, exceed a normal screen length. We may modify or remove extremely long comments, particularly if they are off topic. Express your thoughts concisely in your own words. Do not cut and paste articles into comments – link to them instead.
  8. Links Limit: The comment software will automatically moderate any comment with more than two links, which may delay your comment from appearing. Any comment with multiple links might be automatically marked as spam.
  9. Links Use: We encourage use of links to demonstrate points. We may remove irrelevant links or links to sites with illegal, hostile, or other questionable content.
  10. Stay on Topic: Discuss only the content of a post and closely related topics in the comments of a post. We may remove off topic comments. If you would like to bring up a new topic, propose a Guest Post. We may remove comments about comment moderation; they are off topic.
  11. Conjecture: We aim for fact based discussion. Avoid wild accusations and conspiracy theories.
  12. Profanity: This is a PG13 website. We tolerate moderate language but comments we will edit or delete comments that include profanity. We may ban repeat offenders.
  13. Privacy: Email addresses may be used to register, but remain private and are never shared. We may infrequently contact commenters via email privately. We may remove any personal information such as phone numbers or addresses posted in comments. The editors reserve the right to publish identifying details about users such as IP addresses and email addresses and correspondence in extreme cases of abuse.
  14. Pseudonyms: We permit but discourage pseudonyms. A comment is far more meaningful when you are willing to stake your reputation on it.
  15. Sock Puppets: A sock puppet is a duplicate account registered by the same person. We do not allow sock puppets, and we will ban offending IP address(es). WordPress logs IP addresses for all comments.
  16. Impersonation: We do not tolerate impersonation of prominent persons or any other commenter. We can identify fraudulent comments by their IP address. If you believe someone is impersonating you on our site, please notify us immediately.
  17. If Your Comment Does Not Appear: Sometimes comments are mistakenly flagged as spam. If you leave a comment on this blog and it does not appear in a reasonable time period, and you know that it does not violate these Comment Policies, contact the editors.
  18. Violations: We will attempt to warn commenters before taking action. Commenting on Biofortified is a privilege, not a right.

Forum

As of July 2015, we do not support the Biofortified Forum. Archives can be found here and here. If you want to discuss food and agriculture beyond the comments of each blog post, we recommend proposing a Guest Post. You might also visit our Facebook page and the Food and Farm Discussion Lab, where you can find many members of our community.