The guidelines below are intended to keep discussions on EveryBlock informative, friendly and respectful. If you violate these guidelines, we may remove your submission and/or deactivate your account.

A lot of this comes down to practicing common sense, being respectful and following the Golden Rule. Help us keep EveryBlock a respectful place.

EveryBlock Dos

• Respect your neighbors and practice good netiquette. Treat others as you would during a courteous face-to-face conversation.
• Stay on-topic. Remember, this is a neighborhood-focused site, not an anything-goes forum. There are plenty of other places online where you can talk about stuff beyond your neighborhood; let’s keep EveryBlock focused on neighborhood issues. If you’d like to discuss a citywide or nationwide issue, please be sure to mention how it relates to a specific location or issue in your neighborhood. Support questions and feedback about EveryBlock should be e-mailed to the community management team.
• Respect your neighbors’ privacy. Remember that EveryBlock is a public Web site. Please use caution when writing about your neighbors and posting names and locations on the site. The same applies when posting photos.
• Respect copyright and other third-party rights. This includes rights of publicity and rights of privacy. If you’d like to share an article, provide your own commentary and post a link to the original source.
• Post helpful messages and comments. Everyone needs to vent sometimes, but instead of ranting, use EveryBlock to ask your neighbors for helpful solutions.
• Report offensive or inappropriate messages. We need your help to keep conversations respectful and on-topic. Use the "report" button to bring messages to our attention.
• be a better neighbor! This is a chance for you to contribute valuable information about your neighborhood. Thanks for being a part of the community.

EveryBlock Don’ts

• Don’t post inappropriate pictures or messages. This includes photos and messages that contain nudity, extreme violence, sexual content, hatred, bigotry, racism, illegality (including child pornography) or those that misrepresent another person or organization. In addition, photos that appear to be taken surreptitiously and in a private space are not allowed.
• Don’t post overly promotional messages about yourself or your business (e.g., “Stop by Joe’s Car Wash for 50 percent off tomorrow!” or “Check out my apartment for rent. It’s only $800 per month.”). You may share information that would be considered beneficial and of interest to the community, such as community events, concerts, activities or new businesses opening in the neighborhood.
• Don’t attack or single out a specific EveryBlock user. This means directly or indirectly insulting another user (or group of users) by name-calling, labeling, making sweeping generalizations or putting words in their mouth. If the conversation becomes too heated, you should unsubscribe, hide the discussion or mute specific users.
• Don’t be libelous. EveryBlock isn’t the place for posting rumors or gossip about your neighbors.

As a reminder, the EveryBlock community guidelines are subject to and incorporate the MSNBC Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. If there’s a conflict between EveryBlock guidelines and the MSNBC Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy overrule the guidelines.