Archive of posts from Saba-News.com Archive Saba News
Dear Readers of Saba News,
I have been asked to explain again the House Rules concerning reader contributions, i.e., “Letters to the Editor” or “comments” to posts.
In a larger country, there are commercial publishers that offer the public means to discuss their opinions about their leaders and offer suggestions on how the leaders could improve the society. On Saba we had Facebook and gossip. For some six years now, with Saba News, we offer the community an open and independent platform to express their thoughts, ideas and opinions about our Saban society and how it is governed by our Foundations, the local Authorities and the Central Government in The Hague. Foundations, local Government and public services such as RCN, police, health care, health insurance, etc. are paid with public money, i.e., by all of us. The feedback from many of these authorities and organizations on how they are spending our money and why they have taken certain decisions is often very limited. This could be on purpose, ignorance, lack of interest, etc.
However, the community has the right to know how their money is spent and to express their opinion about the choices made. This affects all individuals that hold some sort of a public function. They are, at least morally, accountable for their decisions. However, at any time, their privacy needs to be protected as well. Only activities that directly to their public functions should be discussed in the public arena,
On Saba News we do not author articles ourselves, so we do NOT publish our private opinions our ideas. We only bring articles to your attention that have been published first elsewhere. A publication is selected, if it contains information that is of direct interest to the Saban community. We always clearly indicate the author(s) of the content and do not edit it. In some instances we have to remove content because of copyright issues. In case of translations, there is always a possibility that things have been translated incorrectly or could lead to ambiguous interpretations. In case you notice this, please alert us as soon as possible so that we can correct this.
Contributions from our readers are always welcome. These can be articles published elsewhere that are interest for the Saban Community, private opinions in the form of “Letter to the Editor” or comments to articles published.
The objective of Saba News is to provide an independent communication platform so, as a principle, we will publish EVERY contribution as long as it is in conformance with our House Rules. The link to the House Rules is at the bottom of every page of Saba News.
They read as follows:
House Rules for contributions
Saba-News.com offers an open platform for its readers to express their views or comment on the views of others. However the Editors insist that these communications remain courteous and civilized. To enforce this we have compiled a set of “House rules” for publication on Saba-New.com. They read as follows:
- “Letters to the Editor” are sent by email or by using the form on this website. Your email address will not be published.
- If you write a “Letter to the Editor”, we insist that we know your real identity and that we have a way to contact you. However, your name will be withheld if you request this.
- Writers of “Letters to the Editor” or Comments may express the personal opinions of the author about the performance of the authorities and/or organizations and the officials that represent them. This holds that you may express your opinion about an individual, but only in relation to the activities that he or she performs in his/her official function.
- Writers may NOT express their opinions about private individuals. These will be removed.
- If you write a Comment to an article, you are welcome to use either your real name or a pseudonym.
- In case of a “Comment to an article”, the content of the contribution must relate to the article concerned.
- We will remove your contribution if these rules are violated . Think of the Constitution and in particular Article 1 ( ” All persons in the Netherlands shall be in equal cases are treated equally. Discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief , political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds whatsoever shall not be permitted . ” ) . Comments that are contrary to the law , will not be posted . In addition, we specifically look at the articles 137 c , 137 d and 137 e of the Criminal Code .
- Rules of decency apply: Contributions that do not respect other people’s opinion or contain comparisons with people like Hitler , Dutroux , NSB , Nazis , Osama , Taliban or something similar will be removed. Swearing at or insulting fellow readers is not appreciated. Contributions containing foul language and / or insults will be removed .
- Call for riots will be removed.
- Contributions that only have commercial content may only be published in the Sections “Classified Ads” and “Business Directory”. The content in these sections must be directly relevant to the Saban community, else they will be removed. Contributions containing spam will always be removed.
- It is free to grumble about SabaNews, but reactions that question our motivation will be removed.
- The Editors reserve the right to shorten your contribution as they see fit. However we will take great care to avoid that the content of the message remains in tact.
- These House rules can be adapted without notification.
Abuse
In the case that you feel that a Contribution is published that violates one or more of the house rules, you should inform the Webmaster of your views through the Contact Form. You can find a link at the bottom of each page.
Thank you for considering these rules.
Webmaster team Saba-News.
Of course, we cannot avoid that these rules give room to a “grey area” where it is ambiguous if a contribution fits the rules or violates them. In that case the Editor has to decide. If you do not agree with the decision to publish or not to publish, contact the Webmaster. The link is also at the bottom of every page. Do not hesitate as this already has happened in the past.
The site is paid and maintained by volunteers. There is no external funding nor from sponsors nor income from ads. This holds that there is absolutely no interest to publish slander to increase traffic to the site. Nevertheless, in a small community, criticism can be easily experienced as “slander”, in particular when suggestions for motivations behind decisions are made. It is sometimes very difficult for us to decide on publication of the full contribution. So sometimes we decide, in line with the above rules, to remove parts of the contribution, as long as , in our opinion, the original message is not affected. We place a note if the contribution has been edited. However, readers cannot see which section have been affected and why.
Over the years our reader community has increased now to over 2,500 readings of articles per day. Your contributions IS read and can have an impact!
Click here to check out the details.
Although we aim to always do the “right thing”, we probably sometimes take wrong decisions. Please contact the Webmaster if you disagree with us so that we can correct things.
Editor Saba-News.com