Brownstoner.com provides diverse types of content for its readers’ consumption but above and beyond that it is an active online community. For a community to flourish, its members need to treat each other honestly and respectfully. That doesn’t mean that your contributions need to be free of snark or sarcasm, but we encourage you to keep them from being mean, hurtful or overly personal. Acting like a jerk on a consistent basis is likely to get you banned from the site.

That said, we want to encourage healthy debate on relevant topics. That’s why we provide a platform for posting questions and comments relating to topics like renovation, gardening, real estate, and quality-of-life issues relating to home ownership, in the form of our forum.

What we don’t permit on our boards are promotional posts by contractors and other service providers – though they may respond to general reader questions, or to specific negative reviews. (And please don’t use our boards to post real estate listings, product promotions or notices of events – we want to foster dialogue among our users, not provide a place for businesses to shill their services through faked testimonials.)

If you want to post on-point listings describing goods or services that would be of interest to the Brownstoner Community – whether for real estate, architectural services, general contracting, architectural salvage items, or the like – check out our restyled Listings pages. But please don’t put these listings on our forum; they are provided for our users, so they can exchange ideas on relevant topics. Users: are our boards are here for you, and we hope you’ll use them.

But here’s the flip side: if you use our boards, you have to take responsibility for any questions or comments that you post. As a private website, Brownstoner.com will not accept responsibility for any information or opinions posted by its users – that responsibility belongs solely to any users posting such information or opinions, and not to the owners, employees or affiliates of Brownstoner.com. And while we will not change the content of any user’s questions or comments, the posting of those questions and comments remains solely within the discretion of Brownstoner.com. Brownstoner.com likewise reserves the right to remove any questions or comments at its sole discretion.

Use common sense. Once you post a question or comment on Brownstoner.com, it is out there – it has become part of the public discourse. So please think before you post. And please don’t post:

• Off-topic rants;
• Statements that are intentionally false or misleading;
• Statements that harass, threaten, or defame others;
• Statements that are racist or discriminatory;
• Information you think is confidential; or
• Information you think is otherwise illegal to make public.

To the extent you may feel compelled to provide negative feedback about real estate brokerage or other service providers like a contractors, or anyone or anything at all, please keep your comments factual and to the point and avoid hyperbolic language and broad disparagements of character. You may be convinced of your own righteousness, but it’s a good way to get sued. In the event your comments or postings do cause the subject to pursue legal redress, we may be compelled to disclose your personal information. We have neither the time nor the money to fall on our sword to protect negative comments that we have no way of knowing are true or not.

In short, be smart and not too much of a jerk. And enjoy: Brooklyn’s an incredible place and hopefully Brownstoner.com is both a useful and enjoyable window into it.

Please see the Terms of Use http://www.brownstoner.com/terms-of-use/ for additional information.

Last updated as of January 09, 2017

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