Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, Der Standard was one of the first media outlets to introduce user comments under every online article worldwide. This code contains the Community Guidelines for participation in the forums of the Austrian daily newspaper. Although every user has the right to the freedom of expression and dialogues should be enabled, legal regulations must be adhered to, and discriminatory content or advertising is prohibited. Comments should reflect a topic reference, objective argumentation and a respectful tone. Furthermore, the moderation procedure is described, including deleting comments or banning users.