Commenting Guidelines

Readers’ comments are an integral part of FT.com. They help to put our coverage in context and provide different perspectives. Sometimes we get story ideas from these discussions, comments proving to be a starting point for another FT piece.

Over time, we have found that some comments are more conducive to discussion than others. Above all, it is important that our site is inclusive, so we ask that you comment in a civil manner. The guidance below offers our view for what works well, lists what sort of comments are not allowed and outlines scenarios where we might intervene in a discussion.

We are grateful to those who take the time to contribute to the FT. We look forward to reading your comments.

Basics

• Ensure that your comments are relevant to the topic being discussed. Off-topic comments may be removed.
• Refrain from writing your responses in capital letters or bold type.
• Write in English. Comments linking to non-English language sites may be removed in their entirety.
• Using offensive language may lead to your comment being removed. This includes the use of swear words and profanity. Using offensive language in your pseudonym may lead to a temporary ban until your pseudonym is changed.

Civility

• Don’t make personal attacks on others or write comments that are needlessly aggressive or rude. Disagreements and criticism are fine, but making your comments personal is not.
• Don’t write comments that are abusive, or incite hatred. Comments that are discriminatory in nature or make sweeping generalisations about people on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age are harmful to our community and not permitted.
• It is also not permitted to call other commenters names, and this includes accusing someone of being a troll. If you are genuinely concerned that someone is a troll, please email help@ft.com and ask for your email to be directed to the comment moderation team.

Sharing the space

• Be concise. Comments posted in two or more parts will be removed.
• Don’t hog the comments space. Those who we deem to be commenting excessively may be banned.

Criticism of the FT and our journalists

• Making personal or uncivil attacks against our writers will lead to your comment being removed and may result in a ban from commenting. Criticism should be made in a constructive manner: play the ball, not the person. We welcome criticism of our coverage but we may remove comments that are plainly unfounded or misrepresent our journalism.

Promoting, reposting, impersonating:

• Comments advertising or linking to businesses or products or aimed primarily at promoting other websites may be removed in their entirety. This includes linking repeatedly to your own blog posts or other content belonging to you but hosted on third-party sites.
• Comments may be removed if they repeat points already made by the same commenter, or if they appear to be part of an organised campaign.
• You must not pretend to be another known FT.com user. You must not impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent any connection with any person or entity.

And our in-house counsel says: Please also see section 7 ‘User Generated Content’ of our terms and conditions.