Tongass National Forest

Blog Rules and General Guidelines

Welcome to the Blog Rules and General Guidelines. This blog is one of a number of tools that the Tongass is using to facilitate communication and discussion during our Forest Plan Amendment process. Our hope is that this blog will be a forum for meaningful discussion about forest planning issues. In addition, please check out our Public Involvement web page for information on other ways to contact us and participate.

We have established the following rules and guidelines to make this blog a safe and meaningful forum for all who wish to participate. Failure to follow these rules and guidelines may result in us having to discontinue this blog.

There are two main rules or codes of conduct:

1. Be respectful of others who participate. We reserve the right to edit or remove comments that we feel are disrespectful or mean-spirited.

2. Avoid using profanity or posting other types of inappropriate comments or materials. We will remove comments that include profanity or other types of inappropriate material and bar the author from further participation.

There are also the following guidelines that you should be aware of:

1. The Forest Service is the primary author and responsible for establishing the initial blog topics for discussion. We will, however, be happy to work with you to “co-author” an initial posting if there is something else you would like to discuss in this forum. Email us at "admin email" if you would like to explore this option.

2. People wishing to participate will need to register with us and login to post a comment.

3. Postings on this blog are not considered official comments on the process or any planning issues discussed here. Official comments may be submitted via our web site, email, or regular U.S. mail. Please limit comments submitted to the blog to a maximum of one typewritten page. The purpose of the blog is to facilitate discussion and interaction. Longer comments should be submitted as part of the official comment process, not here.

4. We do not intend to respond to everything posted on this forum or directly participate in all of the discussions. We will, however, follow these discussions and hope they prove a valuable source of input for our planning process.

5. Any view expressed here is solely that of the individual who wrote it, and only he or she is responsible for its content. Views expressed here do not represent the policies or positions of any agency of the federal government or other organizational entity.