Community Guidelines
Last updated: May 26, 2026
VTScout welcomes comments and reader submissions. These guidelines explain what’s welcome, what isn’t, and what to expect from our moderation. Posting a comment means you agree to follow them.
Welcome
- Honest disagreement, including disagreement with our reporting, our framing, or our sources.
- Local knowledge, context, and corrections of factual errors.
- Constructive criticism — of the reporting, of public officials, of policy decisions.
- Questions about how we report or about the underlying public records.
Not welcome
We remove comments that contain any of the following:
- Personal attacks, harassment, threats, or stalking.
- Hate speech or slurs targeting protected groups.
- Doxxing — publishing private contact information, home addresses, or other identifying details of private individuals.
- Allegations of crimes against named individuals that have not been publicly reported by law enforcement or a court.
- Spam, repetitive promotional content, or links to malicious sites.
- Copyright-infringing material — see our DMCA page.
- Misinformation about active emergencies (weather, public-safety incidents) that could endanger readers.
- Content that violates our Terms of Service.
How moderation works
- All comments from new accounts are held for review before publishing.
- Comments with more than two links are held for review (anti-spam).
- We do not pre-screen every comment from established accounts, but we review reports promptly.
- We will not always explain why a specific comment was removed; persistent violations result in account suspension.
Reporting a problem
If you see a comment that violates these guidelines, email [email protected] with the article URL and a quick description. For privacy or safety emergencies, contact us immediately and include “URGENT” in the subject line.
Our discretion
We reserve the right to moderate, edit, or remove any comment for any reason, including reasons not enumerated above. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects our editorial discretion in moderating user-generated content; that discretion is exercised with the goal of keeping discussion useful and safe.
Appeals
If your comment was removed and you believe the removal was a mistake, email [email protected] with a clear description. We respond to appeals within five business days.