The mission of the usnews.com forums is to encourage users, Web site and magazine staff, and U.S. News experts to engage one another in constructive and helpful dialogue about important issues. We believe our forum users should be given the opportunity to express widely differing points of view without the fear of being edited or censorsed. With that opportunity, however, comes a responsibility for appropriate conduct. The following is a basic guide and code of conduct for usnews.com forum users. Please send any questions regarding these guidelines to edu@usnews.com.
1. Conduct
Users may participate in the forums for lawful purposes only and may not post messages that are threatening, abusive, defamatory, vulgar, obscene or otherwise insulting or objectionable. Users may not post messages that encourage criminal behavior or infringe upon the rights of others.
Users should ensure that the content of messages is consistent with the topic being discussed and appropriate for the general theme of the forum that they are using.
We encourage open debate in the forums but ask that users refrain from personal attacks, name calling, and using forum threads for personal conversations. The forums are public space and users should act accordingly.
If usnews.com finds that a user's messages inhibit or restrict other users' use and enjoyment of the forums, the messages will be removed from the forum. Usnews.com will have sole discretion in deciding if a message violates these guidelines. Usnews.com reserves the right to remove any message at anytime from the forums.
2. Personal safety
When using the forums, users should exercise caution and not post any message that would compromise their safety or the personal safety of anyone else. We discourage the use of full names and the sharing of personal information in the forums. Users should not continue any conversation that makes them uncomfortable and should report the location of objectionable forum threads and messages to edu@usnews.com.
2. Ownership of forum messages
By posting messages in the forums, users are granting usnews.com a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive and irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute any message (in whole or in part) worldwide and to include it in other works in any other form, media, or technology.
3. Monitoring
Usnews.com is not obligated to remove any message in the forums, nor is usnews.com responsible for the content of messages.
4. Advertisements
Advertisements or messages of a commercial nature are not allowed in the forums and will be removed.
5. Photographs and Graphics
We discourage the use of photographs and graphics in the forums. In most cases, any message that includes a photograph or graphic will be removed. Messages from usnews.com experts, which include a photo of the expert, are exceptions.
