Comment policy

Goal

To foster civil and meaningful online interaction which demostrates the Christian virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, courage and charity.

Sites affected

Any website hosted on a domain reserved for use by Union College or its authorized representatives, including but not limited to:

  • ucollege.edu
  • union.college
  • ugroups.ucollege.edu
  • w3.ucollege.edu
  • ucollege.instructure.com

Similarly, we use this policy when moderating comments on Union’s official social media channels, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Vimeo, Linkedin and Twitter.

Guiding principle

In general, Union College employs “the reasonable-Adventist test” for moderating comments. Would a reasonable person who shares the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church feel that the content is appropriate?

Specific guidelines

Comments may not contain or link to:

  • unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically, sexually or otherwise objectionable material;
  • software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
  • instruction about illegal activities, including illegal drug use or alcohol use, child predation, terrorist activities, circumvention of copyright laws;
  • illegal or unauthorized copies of another person’s copyrighted work, such as providing software, music, books, movies and TV shows without regard for legal fair use or licensing restrictions, providing methods to obtain copyrighted works without regard for fair use or licensing restrictions, providing information to circumvent manufacture-installed copy-protect devices;
  • plagiarized words or ideas;
  • instructions in assembling or obtaining weapons;
  • content that involves the transmission of “junk mail,” “chain letters,” or unsolicited mass mailings, instant messages, spim, spam, or any other commercial promotion;
  • content that contains nudity, violence, offensive or sexually suggestive subject matter.

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in the immediate removal of comments and the banning of the user from the site.

Some sites may employ spam-detection software that will remove some comments automatically. If you believe your comment has been removed in error, please contact webmaster@ucollege.edu.

Commenters are encouraged to: 

  • spell and punctuate well;
  • post on topic;
  • keep the conversation active;
  • cite sources;
  • avoid logical fallacies;
  • recognize their own biases;
  • link to uplifting and informative sites related to the original topic.

Copyright

The copyright of all content posted to Union College’s websites, whether written, photographic or otherwise, is retained by the author. Posting, uploading or otherwise transmitting content to Union College’s websites or an authorized agent of the college for the purpose of being posted implicitly grants Union College the right to use that content in any medium at any time without royalty or licensing payments.

Click here for more information about copyright or to view our website privacy policy.

Guidance for content moderators

As educators and employees of an institution of higher learning, we must take issues of academic freedom and cencorship (real or percieved) seriously. Following these guidelines when moderating posts and comments will help diminish hurt feelings, misconceptions and anger toward Union College.

  • Please do not remove any posts/comments that do not violate the principles and guidelines detailed here. Comments/posts which are critical, negative or feature political speech or unpopular opinions should not be removed unless they also violate these guidelines. Please treat such interactions as an opportunity to demonstrate grace, charity, patience and reason. 
  • When a post or comment is removed, make an effort to contact the person directly to tell them why it was deleted. Please include in your response to them a link to this policy and specify which part was violated. Invite them to comment or post again in a way that will not violate this policy. 
  • At times, it may be wise to avoid the appearance of censorship by sharing publicly why a post/comment was removed. When doing so, reference this policy with a link and quote or summarize whatever portion of the original post/comment that does not voilate this policy. This is most effective when a post has already been widely seen and/or shared and reacted to and it removal gives the appearance of censorship. 
  • When in doubt, get a second opinion before taking action. Feel free to contact the Integrated Marketing Communications team with questions about how to proceed with moderating online content.