Discussion Rules

West Virginia Public Broadcasting strives to host civil, well-informed discussions through all our activities – live events, television, radio, our websites, and social media channels.

We seek to make our platforms a safe and welcoming place for everyone – people of all ages, backgrounds and beliefs.

This policy is our attempt to encourage passionate discussion on controversial subjects while keeping things civil.

All participants in WVPB’s activities – live events, television or radio programs, social networks, story/blog comment sections, and other forums – are required to follow these rules.

  • No personal attacks — that includes name calling, libel, defamation, or hate speech. And absolutely NO posts that are threatening, harassing, bullying, obscene, pornographic, sexist or racist.
  • Don’t use obscenities– You know what they are. Remember, this is a public forum which is visited by many different kinds of people, including children, and we want everyone to feel safe.
  • Please stay on topic. Your discussion should be directly relevant to the subject at hand.
  • No rambling, keep it short and meaningful. Generally, anything beyond a few paragraphs had should be very, very interesting to the larger community. We reserve the right to edit for brevity, clarity and other purposes.
  • Respect people’s privacy. We love to learn about new and interesting individuals, but most people don’t want their phone numbers or e-mail addresses published. Please do not share another’s contact information.
  • No advertising, promotion, recruiting, campaigning, lobbying, soliciting or proselytizing. Feel free to share your ideas and experiences about religion, politics and relevant products or services you’ve discovered. There can be a fine line between discussing and campaigning; please use your best judgment.
  • Do not “feed” the trolls. Reacting to their provocations is exactly what they want.

You are solely responsible for the content you post. WVPB is not responsible for the content posted by its users. We do not and cannot review all user content posted on WVPB’s website and social media channels. However, we have the right (but not the obligation) to review, screen, delete, edit and/or move any content.
WVPB reserves the right to delete posts, ban users, and take other actions to enforce these guidelines.

These Discussion Rules are based on NPR’s Community Discussion Guidelines.