Moderation guidelines
All opinions and contributions are welcome, and we pre-moderate all comments submitted to this site. ‘Pre-moderation’ means that comments will not be published instantly; they will first be checked by moderators. Moderators will be monitoring the site between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, and aim to process comments as quickly as possible. We will try to extend moderation outside of these hours if there is resource available.
This is not about censoring your views. The aim is to ensure the discussion is fair, inclusive, relevant and constructive.
We will normally approve comments for publication as long as they:
- respect other people. Comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character
- don’t incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristic
- don’t include swearing, hate-speech or obscenity
- don’t reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
- don’t break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright
- are reasonably concise, and don’t constitute spamming of the site
- don’t advertise commercial products and services – you can mention relevant products and services as long as they support your comment
- don’t impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
- are on-topic. Please don’t post messages that are unrelated to this channel
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission before submitting a comment. Users without this consent are not allowed to participate or provide us with personal information.
We reserve the right to suspend comments at any time.
The views and opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the views of the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government cannot be held responsible for the accuracy, currency or reliability of information posted by external parties.