We are an open Internet based community, but subject ourselves to some usage guidelines that apply to all members of this website. When you are writing comments or posts on this website, you must follow the guidelines listed below.
Further, we have also listed moderation guidelines for reference by the moderators of this website.
Remember, not everything is black and white. But when commenting, posting or moderating, it is better to err on the side of caution. We need everyone's help and support to make this community the most sane, smart and intellectual hang out on Internet in India.
You must follow these simple guidelines when writing comments on Praja posts
Please note that moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Praja Moderators some time by editing and fixing things yourself.
Moderation is critical in ensuring that the content on the site remains organised and relevant to the discussions. Hence praja has moderators who have the right to edit, move or delete comments suitably. As we allow these rights to various users, it also become important that there is as little subjectivity in the decision to edit/delete/move and comment as possible.
This page gives a set of guidelines to ensure objective comment moderation and uniformity in the moderation decision. As a moderator, you are required to adhere to these guidelines.
If you have 200+ Praja points, (you can see your tally on your profile page), you can contact admins (via contact page) and request to be a moderator. Moderators of community have these extra rights on the website:
Below every comment you should see a link named 'Prune'. (You won't see it if you are not a moderator). Click the Prune link if you want to move or promote a comment. After the comment has been pruned, you will be see a new 'block' on your left sidebar asking what do you want to do with that comment.
Moderation is a privilege you have earned by being an active member of the community. As they say, with power comes responsibility. We hope you will use this power judiciously and ethically.
We understand that you are spending your valuable time to make praja.in a better place and we would like to thank you for that on behalf of all members. Happy moderating!
Praja.in is there with a specific purpose in mind, that is to make citizens know, care and participate. In order to keep the focus and sanity, we have some guidelines on how and what to blog about on Praja.
Some more general pointers on content and style:
Your opinions, but with credits to the source of inspiration: Don't just repeat what someone else is saying. Your opinions matter. Write something only if you have something to say about it. Always link to the original article. If you are quoting numbers, they better be backed up with references. Similarly, all pictures from elsewhere need to be credited too. Never ever rip another article from elsewhere. Its OK to quote a few lines (with due credits of course).
Be nice: Be gentle and use responsible language. If you have to criticise something, dont get personal. You have right to criticise the ideas, not the person behind them. Also, it is easy to pick a fight behind the anonymity of web. Never pick a fight. As they say, dont argue with a fool. People wont know the difference.
Think: Before you commit anything in writing, be sure you have evidence to back up what you are saying. Your personal reputation is at stake as well as the site's. Its not nice to delete blogs after they are published and they will always be available on google cache and haunt you for ever.
To help members share knowledge and plan projects, Praja needs to have a super good discussion platform. Besides posting good content (posts, comments), its also very important that we tag posts right. Good tags would lead to better recommendations under "If you read this, you may want to read these too". Besides, tags help in searching content on website.
Members must follow following guidelines to tag their posts.
You must supply at least one free form tag when you write a post on Praja. We say "free form" because you can type anything here, we don't restrict you to a selected set of tags.
Pick the "Praja tone" very carefuly. Tones are meant to be a quick guide on what type of content your post contains. Some members on Praja like reading only "Analysis". Some members prefer reading "Complaints". You will be disappointing them if you don't select the right tone.
Given the magnitude and nature of issues that are being discussed on praja, it is only inevitable that sometimes there are situations where a member has a privileged information on an issue but would not want to disclose it for the fear of being held responsible for it. Then there are situations where the members have an opinion that is not congruent to their or their employer's official stand. We recognize that in such cases several members still prefer to share the information with other keeping in mind the general good of the public.
We are hence happy to announce a 'whistleblower' feature on the site. Please read further for the details on how this works. It is absolutely essential you understand all the implications of this. This page has been written in a FAQ format for easy understanding.
Any information that you think is necessary for the public to know can be posted. This can be an 'off the record' comment, some evidence of an illegal activity, some sensitive documents anything. But be aware not to use this for targeting an individual or showing an organization in unduly bad light. Anything that is being posted will have to have verifiable evidence or other means to verify the authenticity of information being submitted.
You can submit the message by going to the Contact page and selecting 'I am a whistleblower'. Then write your message. If you want to send any documents/images, you can mail them to 'acoward at praja dot in'. (Please see below on precautions to take)
If you have logged in as an user, the admins will know who sent the message. This helps admins to revert to you for some more feedback. However, this also implies that you trust admins to know who you are. You can use this option to send information of low sensitivity that you would not have any legal trouble with if the message were to be traced to you. This implies we know your e-mail address and other information you provided on this site.
If you have an information that is very sensitive and might pose a legal/physical threat to you if it were traced back to you, you can submit the message as an anonymous user. Log out if you are logged in and use contact page with the choice 'I am a whistleblower'. You can leave your true e-mail address if you want to be reached back by admin. Otherwise, fill in a dummy address. However, your writing might not be posted immediately if you post anonymously. This is to discourage the use of this feature for trivial issues. Expect a week's delay on an average.
If you want to send documents or images, open a new e-mail address with online mail services (Gmail, Yahoo etc) and use that mail id to send the attachments to 'admin at praja dot in'. Word and excel files have user information stored in them so you might want to send PDFs.
For additional security, use a computer at an internet cafe.
If you had logged in, the admins will know your user id and other information you submitted. If you have chosen to logout and submit information, admins can know your IP address. The site stores the IP address for two weeks (currently). This IP address can be used by law enforcement agencies in coordination with your Internet service provider to trace you. If you do not wish to be traced, use a public computer at an internet cafe. More technically adept users can use anonymous proxy servers.
Your details as above will be accessible only to the administrators of the site. While we will not reveal your details (IP address etc) to anyone via the website or otherwise, We will have oblige to any legal request by a law enforcement agency to provide any information that we have. In such situations, we will notify you before sharing the details with the law enforcement agencies.
Your message with go to the administrators who take a decision on its suitability to be published based on following criteria.
If the admins deem it necessary, they might also share only the content (and not your details) with few long term trusted members to ensure the suitability of the material for publishing. The material will then be posted as a blog or a comment from acoward.
NONE. Yes, Praja is a platform for people to find other like minded people. Praja admins (in their capacity as admins) will not involve in any action based on the information you provided. The admins' responsibility ends at posting your message anonymously on the site. It is then upto other members who identify with the particular cause to take it further.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments.
Summary: You are responsible for your privacy. Praja admins will only help you remain anonymous. We do not guarantee your anonymity beyond what has explicitly been stated above.