Statement of Purpose

LancasterOnline provides TalkBack as a forum where residents of this community and others can engage in robust, informative discussion of issues and events.

We welcome information, observations and opinions presented from all points of view. We welcome vigorous debate.

At the same time, we insist on civil exchanges of opinion. We expect that comments, no matter how strongly stated, will respect other individuals and groups of people. We do not tolerate personal attacks, offensive content, hate speech or any unlawful communication, such as threats or harassment. Any person found making such comments will lose the privilege of posting in this forum.

We encourage TalkBack participants and members of the general public to report any violation of this policy and the rules below. We reserve the right to review reported violations and, if they are substantiated, to edit or delete the offending content without notice.

We respect the privacy concerns of those who comment on our stories, but we also intend to hold accountable anyone reported to us who violates these rules. To balance these concerns, we permit use of screen names – online nicknames – with posted comments.

We believe that reader comments strengthen our news website and the larger Lancaster County community. In the best tradition of democracy, they enrich the news reported here with commentary, questions and debate.

Over the past four years, the TalkBack community has grown to include more than 8,000 members, about 1,000 of whom comment frequently, many on a daily basis. We hope to see that community grow and, to that end, we ask that longtime TalkBack participants welcome and encourage new participants.

General Posting Policy

When you post content on the TalkBack forum, you agree to the following conditions and terms:

You solely are responsible for the statements, opinions or other content that you post, and Lancaster Newspapers Inc. holds no responsibility for the content of your postings. The company serves only as a medium for constitutionally protected free speech.

While the administrators of this forum will attempt to remove objectionable content or content that otherwise violates its rules as quickly as possible after receiving a report of such content, you acknowledge that posters are solely responsible for the content of their posts and that Lancaster Newspapers Inc. and employees are not responsible nor liable for such content.

The administrators of the TalkBack forum have the right to review, edit or remove any reported content in violation of its policies and rules, in their sole discretion, without notice. Lancaster Newspapers Inc. reserves the right at all times to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any law, regulation or governmental request. TalkBack participants who violate these policies or the rules below may be suspended or banned at any time without notice or warning. Individual posts or threads may be removed at any time, for any reason, or for no reason.

Registration and personal information

To post comments on TalkBack, participants must login with their Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Disqus, or other account.

A TalkBack participant may maintain only one account. A member may not falsely state or misrepresent his or her identity or affiliations.

At the time of registration, participants will be allowed to create a screen name, or nickname, for display with their postings. We encourage the use of real names as display names but, in the interests of privacy, we allow screen names, so long as they are not vulgar, offensive, or imitations of names used by others.

Our privacy pledge: Lancaster Newspapers Inc. will not publish the personal information of TalkBack participants. It will not sell or give the names and personal information for commercial or charitable purposes. It reserves the right to disclose this information to satisfy constitutionally sound law enforcement or other governmental requests.

Respect for others

You may not post content that:

• Attacks individual or groups, or expresses contempt or hatred, based on race, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age or disability.
• Attacks another person, as opposed to his or her statements. A poster may say another person's opinion is foolish; he may not say that other person is a fool.
• Is obscene, indecent, vulgar, obscene, or profane.
• Violates or infringes on the privacy or publicity rights of others.
• Contains the name, address, telephone number or other personal information of another individual, except with his or her explicit permission.

Lawful behavior

You may not post content that:

• Is threatening, abusive, harassing, deceptive, libelous, defamatory or pornographic.
• Constitutes or encourages a criminal offense, gives rise to civil liability or otherwise violates any local, state, national or international law.
• Infringes on any copyright, trademark, trade secret, patent or other proprietary right, without explicit permission from the owner or right holder.

Noncommercial behavior

You may not post content that:

• Contains a commercial or advertising message, whether in single posts or as spam.
• Disrupts forum discussions with irrelevant, off-topic messages, or an excessive number of messages (a flooding attack), or otherwise negatively affects the ability of TalkBack members to post comments.
• Is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, or intentionally misinformative.
• Collects personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes.
• Uses automated means, such as scripts, spiders, robots, crawlers or data mining tools, to collect from or post information to TalkBack forums.
• Contains a component that in any way exploits any information in the forum for commercial purposes.
• Has no relationship to the topic of the thread in which it is posted.

General site and user protections

You further agree to:

• Post no message that contains images.
• Refrain from posting a chain letter, a forwarded e-mail that you did not write.
• Post HTML code of any kind. (Users may include non-HTML addresses to websites in their postings, but administrators reserve the right to remove links to what, in their sole judgment, are deemed inappropriate sites.)
• Post a software virus or other harmful computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, limit or destroy the functionality of any computer/telecommunication software or hardware.
• Link to outside websites or other non-HTML addresses containing illegal material. Such material, when discovered, will immediately be reported to appropriate authorities.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the TalkBack computer servers or any member's computer, or engage in any activity that disrupts, interferes with or diminishes the quality of the TalkBack service.

Violation of any policy or rule may lead to the immediate suspension or permanent ban on the violator's posting privileges. In particular, offenders who launch personal attacks or who engage in racist comments or ethnic slurs can expect to lose privileges for six months on their first offense and permanently if a second offense occurs.

Messages regarding the administration, policies or technical support of TalkBack should be addressed to the TalkBack Administrator. They should not be posted in forum threads.

By posting on TalkBack, you grant to Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. a non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to use, re-post, re-distribute, reproduce, or re-publish your posting and/or your TalkBack screen name in any media, including, but not limited to, print, video, audio, or digital or electronic media, whether now existing, or hereafter developed, and without limitation, this right and license extends to use of the posting and/or screen name for advertising purposes.

Lancaster Newspapers Inc., as a provider of an interactive computer service, shall not be held liable for any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that it considers objectionable. Under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Lancaster Newspapers reserves the right to remove any content or any user that violates any of the above stated rules or policies.

These policies and rules may change at any time without notice.