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Comment Guidelines

"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."
Matthew 12:36-37



The Discussions on this website allow Bible readers to interact, encourage, share, and discuss scripture and related topics. To help preserve this special community, please ensure your comments are respectful, uplifting, consistent with Christian values, and meet the following guidelines. This applies to all comments, questions, replies, prayer requests, and testimonies. For example...



Specific Rules


    1. Do not quarrel. Different viewpoints are allowed (if respectful). Respectful discussion of differing viewpoints is encouraged, but arguments or quarreling is not allowed (especially if disrespectful words or personal attacks are used). (Romans 14:19). For example: saying "you're wrong" is argumentative and not allowed.
    2. Be respectful. Be careful to use gentle, respectful, uplifting words to each other, even if you have a different opinion. If you have a different opinion, you may share how you came to interpret something the way you do. Do not use personal attacks toward someone who interprets something a different way. Treat everyone with dignity and respect as though you are talking with someone God deeply loves and who is made in His image. Anyone may freely share their perspective and opinion (if respectful). This is a Christian website, but people of any faith or belief system may freely comment if discussing and asking questions about the Bible in a genuine open-minded and respectful manner and not merely promoting ones own beliefs, political views, or agenda. (Matthew 10:16)
    3. Think before posting. If someone replies to your comment with a different viewpoint than you and uses words you interpret negatively, please pause and consider if a response is appropriate. Before you reply in-kind or firmer, ask yourself, would you say this to someone in person? Would you use these words to someone you love like a spouse, parent, or close friend? Is this something you'd expect a Christian pastor to say to you? Would you say it to an angel or directly to Jesus's face? If the answer is no, then please hold your tongue. Follow the wisdom from the Bible and please be a good example for others. (Hebrews 13:2)
    4. Self-promotion or marketing is not allowed. If useful to a discussion it is ok to cite a non-URL source related to the Bible reading such as the title of an article if you didn't write it and have no involvement with it. However, it is not permitted to market or promote products or services, such as a YouTube channel, podcast, book, blog, or website.
    5. Posting of URLs outside of this website is not allowed. URLs of this website-only are allowed within comments. We are unable to properly vet the security or truthfulness of content from other website URLs and do not permit external links to them. Even if a link/URL is broken or incomplete it is still disallowed, like typing something dot com.
    6. Respect others' privacy. Posting information about others is disallowed such as their full name or where they work, contact information, or personal information. No one has a right to violate others' privacy. Posting your own contact information is also disallowed, such as a phone number, email, address, or website.
    7. Only adults may comment. Minors under 21 years of age are welcome to read the discussion pages, but not permitted to post comments.
    8. Share equally. Part of being respectful of others is sharing equally and not trying to dominate others.
    9. Stay on topic. Comments should follow the topic. For example, if commenting on the Psalms 23 discussion page the comment should be about Psalms 23. Topics not directly about the Bible may be posted to the general Christian Life page.
    10. Use a consistent name and valid email for one account. Commenters are welcome to use a username instead of your real name, but it is not allowed to change this name in effort to conceal your identity or to have more than one identity. The email address entered must be a valid email address you can receive an email to. A valid email will allow you to know when you receive a reply, will allow you to manage and download your comments, and allow for easier technical support. Only one account is permitted per person.
    11. Avoid disparaging remarks or falsehoods. Believers and non-believers are all welcome to ask genuine questions or share strengths or weaknesses in their own faith, but it is not permitted to publicly slander or intentionally attempt to discredit God, Jesus, Christians, the Bible, the KJV, this website, other commenters, moderators, or volunteers. Any questions or complaints about posting rules or the website shall be asked directly through the Contact Us page. It is not permitted to post false or untruthful information intentionally or repeatedly. (James 4:11, Proverbs 12:22)
    12. Help monitor and report anything inappropriate. If you see any inappropriate comments, please help by clicking the "Report" button underneath the comment. While we have volunteer moderators who do an outstanding job in keeping these forums clean of filth, it's possible for a comment to slip through. For this we appreciate and depend on your help to protect this special community. (1 Peter 5:8)
    13. Comment Moderation. Comment guidelines are enforced by volunteer moderators to help preserve the positive, uplifting community. All comments appearing on the website have already been screened by volunteer moderators. If you see a comment that is inappropriate, please report using the Report button underneath the comment as moderators screen numerous comments and can possibly miss something.

      If a comment says [removed] this was a comment already approved by moderators but was automatically removed by community reports. When a certain amount of unique visitors (not moderators) report a comment as inappropriate it will be automatically and programmically removed. Comments may also be removed by the commenter him or herself. This can be done easily within the commenter's free account as well as see the status of a comment. If a comment is not approved to appear publicly then the comment is still available in the commenter's account. Unless the commenter hears otherwise, the commenter is welcome to modify his or her comment to conform to the Comment Guidelines and resubmit it. Comments that follow the Comment Guidelines will appear publicly in the Discussion area and those not meeting the guidelines will not appear there.

      Discussions older than one month are automatically locked to encourage new discussions. Any discussion threads deviating from the guidelines may be locked. Comments appearing on the website is a privilege, not a right. Volunteer moderators do an excellent job in screening out spam and non-Christian filth and have only limited availability to reach anyone about their comment statuses. Each user's account shows the status of their comments posted and allows their comments to be removed from the website.



Overall: Be careful with your tongue (the words we communicate to others)



Suggestions


    1. Bible Reference Links. In the Bible Discussions pages if you type a Bible reference in a particular format, like Matthew 1:1, it will automatically convert to reference links. You can then hover over it with a mouse to read the Bible verse. Besides individual verses, verse ranges work if there is no space, like Matthew 1:1-5. A series of verses will work if separated with commas and no spaces, like this: Matthew 1:1,3,5,7.

      If this were a Discussion Page these examples would be automatically converted into links. Please click for more examples...

      Abbreviations may be used to create Bible references. These include:

      gen, ex, lev, num, deut, josh, judg, ru, ezr, neh, ne, est, jb, ps, prov, ecc, song, isa, jer, lam, ezk, dan, hos, ob, jon, mic, nah, hab, zeph, hag, zech, mal, matt, mk, lk, jn, act, rom, gal, eph, phil, col, tit, philem, heb, jas, jud, rev, 1sam, 2sam, 1kgs, 2kgs, 1chr, 2ch2, 1cor, 2cor, 1thess, 1tim, 2tim, 1pet, 2pet, 1jn, 2jn, 3jn.
    2. To protect the servers against hacking attempts special characters are not permitted at this time, such as emojis.
    3. If a comment has too many UPPERCASE characters it may be automatically converted to lowercase so it is easier to read. Unfortunately this will automatically convert all proper names to lower case as well.
    4. To protect this community there are word filters to screen out common inappropriate words, but sometimes a word may have more than one meaning and not necessarily be inappropriate in its context. If you attempt to post and receive a warning message, simply go back through and remove any words that may have triggered the warning and resubmit.
    5. Accounts. A free account offers benefits to commenters, including: be notified of new replies within the interface (instead of email), and to see their comments in the account, shows the status of your comments, etc. In the future an account may be required to leave comments.
    6. Discussion Pages. The Bible Discussion page includes the comments from Bible Questions, Encouraging Comments, and Discussions by Book/Chapter pages. Prayer Requests, Testimonies, and Christian Life comments are separate and those comments are unique to each of those pages. The Discussion Pages are in English language only at this time.
    7. Amens. The discussion pages have an Amen button under each comment allowing readers to say Amen to a comment they like or agree with. The Amens received are visible to the author of that comment in his or her private account page. In the Bible Discussions page, there is an option to 'Sort by Amens' to view comments that received Amens in the last 30 days, but the Amen count remains undisclosed. Similar to the Encouraging Comments page, this is intended to provide positive feedback to the authors of the comment as well as let visitors see these comments that others appreciated and said 'Amen' to.
    8. Suggestions.To leave suggestions on how we can improve these discussion forums, please Click Here. May God bless you!
       

      Bible references: King James Bible
      Definitions: Merriam Webster dictionary