Community Guidelines
KamloopsCity.com is built to be useful to the people who live here. These guidelines are meant to keep discussions, reviews, comments, profiles, submissions, and other community activity informative, welcoming, and worth coming back to.
Most of it comes down to one simple rule: disagree with ideas without attacking people. Strong opinions are welcome. Personal abuse is not.
Why we’re here
KamloopsCity.com is a place to discover what is happening in Kamloops, share local knowledge, talk about community issues, recommend places and events, and connect with other people who care about the city.
Good local communities depend on people being able to ask questions, disagree, correct each other, and contribute what they know. We want to protect that kind of good-faith participation.
You do not have to agree with everyone here. You do have to treat them like people.
Be respectful
Criticize an argument, decision, business, policy, organization, or public issue as strongly as you like, but keep personal attacks out of it.
Do not harass, bully, threaten, stalk, intimidate, or deliberately humiliate other users. Do not encourage others to pile onto someone.
Disagreement is not harassment. Criticism is not harassment. A heated political discussion is not automatically harassment. The line is crossed when the focus shifts from the issue to abusing the person.
No hate or discrimination
We do not allow content that attacks, threatens, dehumanizes, or advocates violence against people because of characteristics such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or similar protected characteristics.
Discussion of controversial issues is allowed. Attacking people because of who they are is not.
Threats and violence
Do not threaten violence against another person, group, business, organization, animal, or property.
Content that credibly threatens public safety may be removed and, where appropriate, reported to the relevant authorities.
Keep it honest
Do not deliberately mislead other users.
That includes scams, impersonation, fake accounts intended to deceive people, fabricated reviews, coordinated manipulation, fraudulent listings, and knowingly false claims presented as fact.
Being wrong is not the same as being dishonest. People are allowed to make mistakes, change their minds, or disagree about facts that are genuinely uncertain.
If you make a serious factual claim, particularly one that could damage someone’s reputation, affect someone’s safety, or cost someone money, be prepared to support it.
Reviews and local businesses
Honest reviews are welcome, including negative ones.
Reviews should reflect a genuine experience or a reasonable opinion based on information you actually have. Do not post fake reviews, organize review bombing, threaten businesses with bad reviews, or use reviews to settle unrelated personal disputes.
Business owners and representatives are welcome to respond to criticism, but they must follow the same rules as everyone else.
If you have a financial, employment, family, political, or other significant connection to something you are recommending or criticizing, disclose it when that connection would reasonably matter to readers.
Politics and public issues
KamloopsCity.com is a local community site, so politics will inevitably be discussed.
Political disagreement is welcome. Debate candidates, parties, governments, policies, spending, development, taxes, unions, neighbourhood issues, and decisions made by public bodies.
Do not use political disagreement as an excuse for harassment, threats, hate speech, impersonation, or knowingly spreading fabricated information.
Public officials and candidates can be criticized vigorously. They are still people, and the rules against threats and targeted abuse still apply.
Respect privacy
Do not publish another person’s private information without a legitimate reason or their permission.
That includes private home addresses, personal telephone numbers, private email addresses, financial information, identification documents, passwords, medical information, or other sensitive personal details.
Information that is already legitimately part of a public record may sometimes be discussed when it is relevant, but do not use public information to encourage harassment or intimidation.
Never use KamloopsCity.com to dox someone.
Photos and other people’s content
Only upload photos, writing, video, graphics, or other material that you have the right to share.
Do not knowingly post copyrighted material you are not entitled to distribute.
When posting photographs taken in public, use reasonable judgment, particularly where children, private residences, accidents, medical situations, or vulnerable people are involved.
Children and young people
Content that exploits, sexualizes, threatens, or otherwise endangers minors is not permitted.
Be especially careful about sharing identifying information about children, including their location, school, routines, or other information that could put them at risk.
Spam and self-promotion
Local businesses, organizations, community groups, candidates, event organizers, and residents are all welcome to participate.
Relevant self-promotion is fine when it contributes something useful to the community. What we do not want is repetitive advertising, unsolicited promotional messages, misleading promotional posts, link spam, or accounts created primarily to flood the site with advertising.
If every conversation becomes an excuse to promote your business, campaign, organization, or website, that is spam.
Classifieds, sales, and submissions
Do not use KamloopsCity.com to sell illegal goods or services, stolen property, counterfeit goods, prohibited weapons, controlled substances, or anything else that cannot legally be bought or sold.
Listings and submissions must be reasonably accurate. Do not intentionally misrepresent a product, property, event, business, service, or opportunity.
Sexual and graphic content
Pornography and sexually explicit material are not permitted.
Graphic material involving serious injury, death, or violence may be removed or restricted when it is gratuitous. Newsworthy or public-interest material may sometimes be allowed when presented responsibly and with appropriate context.
AI-generated content
AI tools can be useful, but they should not be used to flood KamloopsCity.com with low-quality or deceptive material.
If AI was substantially responsible for creating content presented as reporting, analysis, a review, firsthand experience, or original expertise, disclose that when the distinction would matter to readers.
Do not use AI to fabricate events, quotes, photographs, businesses, reviews, accusations, or people.
Keep the site safe
Do not attempt to compromise KamloopsCity.com or other users.
That includes malware, phishing, credential theft, unauthorized access, denial-of-service attacks, malicious scripts, automated account abuse, scraping intended to harvest private user information, or attempts to bypass security controls.
Responsible security reports are welcome. Exploiting a vulnerability against users is not.
Reporting problems
If you see content that you believe violates these guidelines, report it rather than escalating the situation yourself.
Reports are reviewed in context. A report does not automatically mean the reported content will be removed.
Disagreeing with someone, receiving criticism, or seeing an opinion you dislike is not by itself a violation.
How moderation works
Moderation is based on context and judgment rather than trying to write a rule for every possible situation.
Depending on the circumstances, we may:
- edit or remove content;
- ask a user to change their behaviour;
- restrict particular features;
- temporarily suspend an account;
- permanently remove an account; or
- take immediate action without a warning when the violation is serious.
Repeated behaviour matters. Someone who continually pushes against the boundaries after being warned may be treated differently from someone who makes one good-faith mistake.
We may also leave controversial or offensive material up when it has legitimate news, documentary, political, educational, or public-interest value and does not otherwise cross one of the lines above.
Moderation is not censorship
KamloopsCity.com is an independently operated community website, not a government-run public forum.
We want broad discussion and a wide range of opinions, including opinions that some people strongly dislike. Moderation is intended to keep the community usable, not to make everyone agree.
The basic standard remains the same: argue the issue, not the person.
“Free Speech” cannot be used as an excuse to be nasty. This website is owned and operated by me (Darryl Schmidt) and you should conduct yourself as if you’re having a conversation in my living room. If I don’t want you as a guest, you won’t be.
These guidelines will evolve
KamloopsCity.com has been part of Kamloops’ online community in one form or another since 2003. The site will continue to change, and these guidelines will change with it.
We may update them as new features are added or new situations arise.
The goal is not to build the longest possible rulebook. It is to maintain a local community where people can speak freely, disagree strongly, share useful information, and still want to come back tomorrow.
Thanks for helping make that possible.
