Community guidelines: How to get the most out of Coloradoan comments

In newspapers' print heyday, the opinion pages were a rich hub of community conversation: Engaged residents wrote letters to the editor on a topic of interest, and in the following days and weeks, you'd get a chance to read the rebuttals and endorsements in the responses — perhaps even your own.

Then came online commenting forums. Online comments made it easier to share viewpoints with a large audience, and instantly.

And when Facebook, Twitter and Instagram showed up, an individual's potential for exposure and influence grew exponentially.

But so did some bad social behaviors.

That's why today the Coloradoan has community guidelines for commenting, primarily to keep our forums free from abuse and disinformation: no personal attacks, abuse or harassment. No hate speech or stereotypes that disparage a group of people based on religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. No obscenities and vulgarities. No posting of false content.

These guidelines help us provide a productive space for the community to share thoughts, possible solutions and ideas related to the issues we report on.

On all the social media platforms we have today, a Coloradoan story can travel far. We hope it connects us with more people who live here and care about what happens in Fort Collins and Northern Colorado. But the power of social media means our forums can draw the notice of people who don't live in Larimer County or even Colorado, and who don't have much of a stake in what happens here.

Read more: Coloradoan offers improved story commenting system for better experience

That's not who we are here to serve.

Our priority is to offer commenting forums for our local community, the people who read what we are reporting as they seek deeper understanding and think on solutions.

That's why we're prioritizing our commenting forum at Coloradoan.com. We are shifting our attention and efforts away from conversations on Facebook and Instagram so we can spend that time focusing on our on-site forum.

Why can't I comment on a Coloradoan post on Facebook?

You might notice that we sometimes close commenting on Facebook or Instagram, either as a post goes up or sometimes after it has already drawn some commenting activity.

Keeping forums free from abuse and disinformation — the most frequent problems we see on social media — requires time and attention. Moderating them to ensure they adhere to our standards is the right thing to do to provide a space for better and more productive conversations.

But we aren't able to moderate them as often as they deserve, especially if the subject stirs passions and draws hundreds of comments during a short time — often from nonlocal sources.

Focusing on one forum at Coloradoan.com allows us to offer a place for community conversation while using our time more wisely.

When you see comments disabled on our Facebook posts, we invite you to come over to Coloradoan.com to join the conversation. (For information on how to do that, see our FAQ.)

If you're on Facebook, when we choose to not open commenting on a story, you can still share that post and spark your own conversations. We hope you will.

Do I have to subscribe to comment at Coloradoan.com?

You don't have to subscribe to comment on Coloradoan.com, but you do need to be a registered user.

Coral, the platform we use to host comments on site, has some nice features that allow us to more easily eradicate spammers, pre-moderate if necessary and privately message users. We can also host a Q&A or introduce questions to focus the conversation on certain aspects of an issue. We hope to use these latter features more often in the future.

It also has some nice features for users: You can "ignore" other users if you don't want to see their posts in the future, you can still report abusive comments, and instead of a like button, you might rather use the "respect" button.

To get started, click on the blue "View Comments" button at either the top of a story (computer users) or the bottom (mobile device users). It'll prompt you to register when you try to comment. Also know that for now, commenting is not available on our apps, but you can access it through a browser on your device.

MORE: How to use Coral at Coloradoan.com.

Isn't it censorship when you don't allow commenting or delete comments?

The Coloradoan is an ardent supporter of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press, in addition to its other protections.

But any business using social media still can set its own rules of conduct, halt comments when they get out of hand or choose to not offer a commenting platform at all.

We do want to give room for people to make their views heard, and we plan to keep doing that at Coloradoan.com. With our community guidelines and by focusing our moderation strategy in one place on the most divisive topics, we can offer a forum while limiting the amount of abuse and disinformation within it.

Whether it's on Facebook or on Coloradoan.com, know that disagreement and dissent are welcome, but we ask that participants do it without name-calling, insults, harmful stereotypes or inciting language.

How do you define 'disinformation'?

"Content that is false, promotes or advocates unfounded conspiracy theories, is altered, libelous or otherwise serves to misinform or disparage others."

In this COVID-19 era, the science and facts, and making sense of them, can seem to change on a daily basis. This means it can be difficult and time-consuming to separate facts from emerging data and misinformation.

Differing opinions of all stripes on an issue are welcome in our commenting forums, whether that's questioning mask and vaccine mandates or other public health decisions. But if initial research shows a comment contains a claim that has vastly been discredited by the relevant experts, we may remove the comment.

Otherwise, when it's not clear if something is fact or fiction, you might see a Coloradoan moderator pop into the conversation to provide context or additional information, or to ask for additional information. This shouldn't be interpreted as taking sides on an issue. The goal is to increase the quality of information.

Our goal is to provide a place for respectful conversation that has room for dissent and is rooted in facts. If that's what you're looking for, we hope you'll join us.

Rebecca Powell is a content strategist at the Coloradoan, working to connect our community with the answers they seek. Contact her at RebeccaPowell@coloradoan.com. The Coloradoan can't do the important work of keeping our community informed without you. Support us by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Coloradoan comments: Where to post, rules to follow