The Kyiv Independent’s Commenting Guidelines

The Kyiv Independent is proud to be driven by our readers – the majority of our revenue comes from our readers’ support. We want to foster an environment where our content sparks civil discussion and an exchange of views between readers, both in the open comment section directly underneath articles or in our members-only Discord server.

Our commenting guidelines are designed with our readers in mind. Comments that do not adhere to the guidelines will be subject to moderation.

The following comments will be deleted, while authors that repeatedly spread such comments will be banned from the website:  

• Ad hominem attacks or personal attacks that go beyond civil discussion on a given topic
• Vague and senseless comments that are not relevant to the subject of the article
• Aggressive comments or comments that use offensive or insulting language
• Comments that incite hatred or are discriminatory on the basis of ethnicity, sex, age, disability, etc.
• Comments written with the intent to mislead the reader or spread disinformation
• Comments that appear under multiple articles with the same wording or are copy-pasted under multiple articles
• Ads, pornographic material, links to external irrelevant content

Please note that your first comment from a new Kyiv Independent account will be subject to moderation before being visible to other users on our website. Please allow 48 hours for this process.