Guidelines for Comments

1. What Are Comments?
2. Who can Contribute?
3. How to View, Add and Respond to Comments
4. Requesting Review of Inappropriate Content

1. What Are Comments?

EHP allows readers to discuss News articles through the use of comments. Comments can lead to threaded discussions concerning the content, conclusions, and consequences of a specific article.

Authors of all comments will be identified.

2. Who Can Contribute?

All registered users are able to rate News articles. Anyone can register as a user and create an account by providing their full name, location, and valid e-mail address.

Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following EHP's posting guidelines. Ratings and comments do not reflect the views of EHP or the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

3. How to View, Add and Respond to Comments

To view all comments on an article along with any replies, click the "Comments" tab at the top of the article.

To add a general comment about a News article and/or begin a discussion about the article, first make sure you are logged into the website. To create a comment, click the "Make a General Comment" link in the right-hand navigation menu of the article. Enter a title and text for your comment in the appropriate boxes. We suggest that comments be composed in a word-processing program that allows for spell checking before they are copied and pasted into the "Enter your comment. . ." field. When you are satisfied with your text, click "Post." URLs included in the response text will automatically become working links, provided the URL was entered correctly.

To respond to a comment, click the "Respond to This Posting" link below the comment. Enter a title and text for your response in the appropriate boxes. Following this procedure, an unlimited number of branching threads can be anchored to an initial comment.

If any contribution is removed following moderation, all subsequent responses along its thread will also be removed.

4. Requesting Review of Inappropriate Content

Comments must comply with EHP's posting guidelines. Interpretation of these guidelines is subject to the discretion of the EHP editors. Comments that do not conform to EHP's guidelines will be promptly removed and the user account disabled.

Users may not post:

• personal attacks or threats against other users or individuals, or libelous, harassing, or abusive statements.
• attacks on individuals or groups based on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or other classification.
• content that is obscene, vulgar, or sexually explicit.
• commercial product promotions or off-topic messages; spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or fraudulent or deceptive messages; or false claims of affiliation with any third party.
• material whose posting on the EHP website could result in infringement of any third-party intellectual property or privacy or publicity rights.

To request review of a rating comment you believe to be inappropriate, or if you suspect the rating system is being abused, click the "Report a Concern" link in the bottom-right corner of the individual rating. Indicate why the rating should be reviewed ("Spam," "Offensive," "Inappropriate," or "Other"), enter any additional information in the text box, and click "Submit."