Site Policies

Note: For copyright information see our Reprint And Reproduction Rights page.

Comments Policy

Valid As Of March 16, 2005

Reader comment functionality is a service provided by Portland Communique, and technically exists entirely at our discretion. There is no inherent right to publish reader comments on this site. As such, as reserve the right to delete any comment.

That said, historically we have only exercised that right in two situations. First, what is commonly referred to as comment spam will either be automatically blocked by MT-Blacklist or manually deleted. Second, we have on occasion deleted multiple comments that result either from user error or a technical glitch.

To our knowledge, we have one of the most open comments policies in the local political blogosphere, and while this site's nature as a privately-run endeavor gives us the right to remove comments based upon content, we have never done so and have no plans to do so in the future.

Trackback Policy

Valid As Of March 16, 2005

Trackback functionality is a service provided by Portland Communique, and technically exists entirely at our discretion. There is no inherent right to publish trackbacks on this site. As such, as reserve the right to delete any trackback.

As with our comments policy, we have only exercised our right to delete trackbacks in either the case of spam, or in the case of accidental multiple trackback pings.

Note: We currently are examining the possibility of instituting a trackback policy under which we will delete any trackback pings sent from weblog posts which do not actually link to us in the process. For us, trackbacks are not intended to serve as defacto text ads for other people's content, but exist as part of the "currency" of the Web, which is links.

Under this potential policy, if you send a trackback ping to this site, it would be expected that the referenced weblog entry includes a link to the Portland Communique entry being pinged, in the spirit of fair and equitable exchange. To be clear: We have not instituted such a policy at this time, but it is under consideration.

Privacy Policy

Valid As Of March 16, 2005

For each visitor to this website, the server automatically recognizes that visitor's domain name, and frequently the URL of the referring site which brought that visitor here. In addition, similar information is tracked by Jellycounter, a third-party visitor-counting service.

Any visitor who posts reader comments to this website will have their email address recorded both within the Movable Type software through which this site is published, and will be publicly accessible along their with their comment.

In addition, at the visitor's discretion, this website can set a cookie on their computer containing their preferred name, email address, and URL for the purposes of reader comments.

None of the information we collect is shared by us with any other third-party, be it for commercial or non-commercial purposes. We may, however, make use of such information for the purposes of research when reporting a story.

(For example, we once outed a single person who appeared to be posting under more than one name as likely being the son of a Mayoral candidate. We did so because we believed that the apparent "gaming" of the reader comments to make it appear as if more than one person was defending that candidate was something readers deserved to know.)

In addition, any visitor who utilizes the Amazon Honor System or PayPal contribution links should be familiar with the privacy policies of those websites as well.

Note: Any email sent to us is by default considered on the record unless it specifically indicates otherwise.

Any visitor with questions or comments about this privacy policy or our adherence to it should contact us via any one of the methods listed on our Contact page.

Editorial Policies

The principles listed here should help the reader understand our goals with Portland Communique and its ongoing experiment in amateur reporting and hobbyist journalism. Futher food for thought can be found in Jay Rosen's lists of what is radical and conservative about the intersection of weblogs and journalism.

Elements Of Journalism

  1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.
  2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.
  3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.
  4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
  5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
  6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
  7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
  8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
  9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

See the full statement of purpose from which these nine elements are taken for an expanded view and explanation of each. Available on the website of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists, they were adapted from the book, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.

Weblog Ethics

  1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
  2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
  3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
  4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
  5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
  6. Note questionable and biased sources.

Taken from an excerpt from the book, The Weblog Handbook, by Rebecca Blood. See the full excerpt for more detail on each.