You may have noticed that next to all comments left by users on OpenCongress, there is now a little red flag. By clicking on the flag, a comment will be marked as abusive and a site administrator will review it and possibly delete it.

We love people commenting on bill pages, people pages and articles on OpenCongress. It’s what the site’s all about. We simply ask that your comments stay on topic, don’t attack other users and are not offensive.

More specifically, the types of comments we consider “abusive” and will delete include:

• Any comment that is racist, sexist, homophobic, or unduly offensive

• Any comment that contains excessively foul language

• Any comment that attacks another commenter or includes ad hominem attacks

• Any comment that is completely off topic

• Any comment that is excessively long (you can always copy/paste the url if you want to share a long article)

• Any comment containing advertising or spam
  
  

That said, we will never delete a comment because of its political or ideological point of view.

We want our comment boards to be useful and enjoyable for everyone, so please let us know how these guidelines are working out, and if necessary, we’ll make adjustments.