Community Guidelines

We aim to provide a place where our readers can discuss and debate the issues we cover concerning the UK book trade, and to create an environment in which readers can contribute actively to the debate. We try to allow comments on as many of our articles as possible.

These guidelines apply to everything you post on The Bookseller website, including comments on our articles and posts in our forums (together, "posts"). They form part of our Terms and Conditions, which you agree to when you post.

Posts are the views of the people who write them, not the views of The Bookseller. You are responsible for what you post.

What is not allowed

You must not post anything that is illegal. We will remove illegal content as soon as we become aware of it and, where appropriate, report it to the police or other authorities.

We may also take action on any post that we consider:

• is abusive towards, threatens, harasses or bullies the authors of our articles, other users of our website or any other person or organisation
• is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise discriminatory, including on the grounds of religion, disability or age, or is otherwise offensive
• is defamatory, breaches copyright or someone else’s privacy, or encourages others to break the law
• could prejudice ongoing legal proceedings, for example by commenting on the guilt or innocence of someone facing trial
• is overtly commercial. We welcome opinions and comments from publishers and arts organisations, but they should take part in the conversation rather than post sales messages
• is spam, or is repeated, off-topic or posted to disrupt the discussion
• pretends to be someone else, or misleads others about who you are or who you represent
• includes personal contact details, such as email addresses, phone numbers or home addresses, whether yours or anyone else’s
• contains links to other websites that include any of the material above

You must give a valid email address to post. We will not publish it. We use it as set out in our Privacy Policy.

Action we may take

We may remove or edit any post that, in our opinion, breaks these guidelines. We may also remove or edit posts that reply to or refer to posts that break them.

If you repeatedly or seriously break these guidelines, we may suspend or close your account and stop you posting.

How we moderate

Posts on The Bookseller website are generally checked after they are published, not before. Some posts are held for checking before publication automatically, because of their content or where they come from. This is mainly to prevent large-scale spam, but genuine posts are sometimes held too. If this happens to your post, please be patient.

We generally moderate posts during office hours, Monday to Friday. Posts made outside these hours will be checked as soon as possible.

Reporting a post

If you see a post that you think is illegal or breaks these guidelines, please email philip.jones@thebookseller.com. Please include the web address (URL) of the page where you saw the post and enough information for us to identify it, and tell us why you are reporting it.

If you believe a post is defamatory of you or of your organisation, please tell us which statements you object to and why.

If your post has been removed

If we have removed your post or taken action against your account and you think we have made a mistake, please email philip.jones@thebookseller.com and explain why. We will review our decision.