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City of Rockville Blog Policy

What This Blog Is

A blog (from the words “Web log”) is a Web site that regularly posts news and/or commentary to the Internet. The purpose of the City of Rockville’s blog is to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between the City government and you, the residents, visitors and workers, who make our community a great place. The City Manager (or his designee) will post topics on this blog.  In response to such posts, we encourage your comments; your ideas and concerns are important to ensure that as many people as possible are active and informed participants in the discussion.

This is a moderated blog. That means all comments will be reviewed before posting. In addition, we expect that participants will treat each other, as well as the employees, elected officials and board members of the City of Rockville, with respect.

What This Blog Is Not

The City of Rockville will not post:

• Vulgar, abusive or unlawful content;
• Libelous or defamatory content;
• Personal attacks or threats of any kind;
• Content that perpetuates discrimination of any kind with regard to race, color, sex, national origin, genetic information, religion, age, equal pay, or disability;
• Language or content that is spam or not topically related to the particular blog post being commented on;
• Promotions or endorsements of commercial services, products or entities;
• Unsolicited proposals, responses to City bid requests or Requests for Proposals, or other business ideas or inquiries. The blog is not to be used for contracting or commercial business;
• Content that violates a legal ownership right or interest including without limitation, a copyright, trademark or patent;
  
• Content regarding political parties, candidates or groups;
• Anonymous content;
• Links to any other Web site;
• Personal information (addresses, social security numbers, etc.) of any person;
• Questions from the media  - Members of the media are asked to send questions to the City of Rockville Public Information Office through their normal channels;
• Reports of criminal activity. If you have information for law enforcement, please contact the Rockville City Police. For emergency matters, please dial 911, and for non-emergency matters, dial 240-314-8900;
• Submissions of questions or status inquiries to City staff about individual cases or service issues within the City of Rockville. Instead, please contact the City of Rockville government directly via telephone (240-314-5000) or our main Web site (www.rockvillemd.gov) to get assistance from the appropriate department;
• Submission of any claim, demand, informal or formal complaint, or any other form of legal and/or administrative notice or process, or for the exhaustion of any legal and/or administrative remedy.

General Information

No comments posted on the blog (other than by the City Manager or his designee) shall represent the opinions of the City of Rockville.  Any references to commercial entities, products, services, or other nongovernmental organizations or individuals that are approved for publishing are provided solely for the information of individuals using this blog. These references are not intended to reflect the opinion of the City of Rockville government, or its officers, board members or employees, concerning the significance, priority, or importance to be given the referenced entity, product, service, or organization. Such references are not an official or personal endorsement of any product, person, or service, and may not be quoted or reproduced for the purpose of stating or implying endorsement or approval of any product, person, or service.

This blog may be subject to the Maryland Public Information Act, and therefore any content posted may be subject to public disclosure.  Any claims made regarding the City of Rockville blog shall be governed by Maryland law.  Any person posting to this blog hereby consents to the jurisdiction of the Maryland state courts and venue in Montgomery County, Maryland. 

The City of Rockville reserves the right to modify this policy at any time.

The City of Rockville assumes no liability for any content posted on this blog and shall not be liable for any damages of any kind resulting from the use of or inability to use the blog, the content of the blog, or the operation of the blog.  Any person posting to this blog shall indemnify and hold the City of Rockville harmless for all claims resulting from that person’s use of this blog, its operation and/or its contents. 

The City of Rockville government makes no representations, guarantees or warranties and disclaims all warranties, express or implied, regarding the blog’s operation or that any content posted by individuals on this blog is correct, and shall not be liable for any errors or omissions, loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of reliance on the use or operation of the blog, or any content posted on the blog.  Any person posting to this blog warrants and represents that he or she either owns or otherwise controls all of the rights to the content posted, and shall indemnify and hold the City of Rockville harmless for all claims resulting from such content.   

How to Comment

In order to promote open and honest discussion, a full name and verifiable e-mail address is required for each comment posted to the blog. Comments submitted under false names, from unverifiable e-mail addresses or duplicate comments submitted from multiple e-mail addresses will not be posted.

We recognize that the Web is a 24/7 medium, and your comments are welcome at any time. However, given the need to manage City resources, moderating and posting of comments will occur during regular business hours. Comments submitted after hours or on weekends will be read and posted as early as possible; in most cases, this means the next business day.
 
To protect your own privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include personal information, such as Social Security numbers, phone numbers, e-mail or resident addresses in the body of your comment. Comments that contain such personal information will not be posted.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Blog Policy. We encourage your participation in our discussion and look forward to an active exchange of ideas.