Guidelines for Commenting

DOS

Make sure your comments focus on the substance of arguments as opposed to their writers.

Try and add value to the discussion, and do always stay on topic.

Take extra care to read any comments posted by the author of an article as they may clarify the article.

Stay polite and civilised at all times.

Try and check your facts before posting. We won’t be fact-checking comments for accuracy, but will delete posts if we happen to find factual errors in them.

DONTS

Avoid insults, rudeness, and personal attacks against writers or fellow commenters. If you can’t say what you have to say politely, don’t say it at all.

The following are not allowed under any circumstances:

• racism and accusations of racism
• comments about bias by officials against specific teams or players
• comments accusing any player, team or official of match-fixing or of any performance being influenced by betting

Try not to post two-word comments like “Great article”. Try to explain why you like the article. (This is also because increasingly spam contains only short phrases like the ones mentioned above – expanding on your comment reduces the risk of getting caught in a spam filter.)

On the other hand, try and make sure your comments are not overlong. We currently have a character limit of 1000 (about 200 words) for comments.

Avoid comments in all caps.

Do not post spam – disguised or otherwise.

Make sure your posts do not contain: libellous or potentially libellous statements; obscene and explicit language; threats; information taken uncredited and without permission from another source or sources; email addresses or telephone numbers or other private and personal information published without consent; URLs pointing to material that is not directly related to the discussion.

Comments found violating these rules will be deleted.

If you wish to report activity that you believe violates our guidelines, please write to comments@cricinfo.com with the relevant url and the username of the offending commenter.

NOTE

Cricinfo reserves the right to edit comments as deemed necessary before they are published, delete them after they are published, or not publish them at all, without consulting the commenter concerned. Our decision will be final in all cases in this regard and in terms of interpretation of the guidelines above.

By submitting comments you agree to abide by the guidelines. Users who violate these guidelines may lose the privilege of posting on Cricinfo.