Neighborliness Guidelines
General Neighborliness
The Internet can be rowdy, abrasive and even raunchy. But not Neighborside. A kind, caring human being monitors each and every post, so Neighborside is never a free-for-all. There are plenty of Internet sites for that. We keep Neighborside calm and friendly through basic rules of etiquette that we call Neighborliness Guidelines.
We expect all submissions to be true and accurate without offensive words and phrases. Posts should help solve problems and should not provoke anger. Posts shouldn’t include gossip, rants, political opinions, or personals. They can’t include complaints or reprimands directed at an individual or group. Neither do we accept posts or ads related to controversial items, including, but not limited to, weapons, ammunition, tobacco or cannabis products, and vaping devices and materials.
If you’ve witnessed inappropriate behavior, please discuss it directly with the neighbor involved and/or report it to the proper authorities. Then, you may submit a calm, kind, helpful post as may be appropriate. The authorities may help you describe an unknown suspect in a manner that is helpful and isn’t based on race or ethnicity.
We love family-friendly posts among caring neighbors. Feel free to announce a neighborhood political meeting, but your announcement must not put down any candidate, party, or point of view. Please alert neighbors when a burglary or other crime takes place (after reporting the incident to the police), but don’t gripe or complain about the local police, a neighborhood association, a neighbor, or a group of neighbors. Please announce your church, synagogue, or religious community’s activity, especially if the public is invited, but do so without slighting neighbors of other faiths.
Of course, our opinion is subjective, but we return posts for revision or clarification when they rub us the wrong way.
Repetitive Posts
To avoid annoying repetition, we require you to wait at least two weeks before re-submitting a similar post and urge you to lower the price on any item when you offer it a second time. We reserve the right to reject posts about items already offered repeatedly.
Business Reviews
We welcome both positive and negative reviews of businesses as long as they’re from actual customers, deal with actual business services, are factual, and avoid offensive and angry language. (Communication is a two-way street that often benefits from improved efforts on both sides. So, we don’t publish posts dealing with solely with communication issues. If you can’t reach a sponsor, please let us know and we’ll try to help.) We always attempt to contact any business about a negative review. We want to give the business an opportunity to share it’s perspective about the events that gave rise to the review and, perhaps, to work with a neighbor to right a wrong. After we contact the business, we sometimes contact the reviewer for more information so that the information we provide to readers is as accurate as possible. When appropriate, we share with our readers both the review and the business’s response. We love business reviews that are truthful, helpful, wholesome and friendly—in a word, neighborly. We particularly encourage reviews of the businesses that sponsor Neighborside.
Posts Offering Employment Opportunities
We welcome posts that announce employment opportunities with any business. We love to help neighbors find employment.
Fees for Promoting Commercial Products and Services
Our mission at Neighborside is to provide a great way for neighbors to communicate with neighbors. Of course, this effort requires time and money. Our revenues come from those who pay to advertise their services in Neighborside. These sponsors make our newsletters possible. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to them if we allowed non-sponsors to promote their services at no charge, so we have chosen to charge a very reasonable fee for any ad that promotes services (or commercial products). Our fees start small and are reasonable enough that they are paid regularly by neighbors seeking only a little money on the side. Click here for more information.