ਭਾਈਚਾਰਾ ਨੇਮ

1. The principle

In a Punjabi home a guest is received with warmth, and a guest honours the house. Kalam Di Goonj carries that principle of mehmaan-nawaazi into every space where readers speak. You are welcome here, and the same welcome must remain available to the next person who arrives. Disagreement does not breach hospitality; contempt does. One rule governs the rest: address ideas, not people.

2. Where these guidelines apply

They apply to every interactive space connected with the Publication: letters to the editor, comments once enabled, any forum or online event we host, and our official social-media channels, where the platform’s own rules also apply. They bind readers, contributors, and our own staff equally. “We” means Northview Productions Inc., doing business as Kalam Di Goonj.

Status: comments are disabled at launch. We publish these guidelines now so that when interactive spaces open, the rules are already settled, known, and applied consistently from the first day.

3. What is not permitted

We will edit, decline, or remove contributions, and may act against accounts, where participation involves:

• Unlawful discrimination or hate. Content likely to expose people to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, religion, ancestry, place of origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, or another protected characteristic crosses the line drawn by BC’s Human Rights Code and, at the extreme, the Criminal Code’s hate-propaganda provisions. Our own standard is stricter: dehumanizing content, including slurs, vermin-and-disease rhetoric, and calls to exclude or degrade a community, is removed even where it may fall short of the legal threshold.
• Harassment and threats. Threats of violence, stalking behaviour, coordinated pile-ons, sustained personal abuse, or targeting a person to drive them out of the conversation.
• Doxxing. Publishing a person’s home address, phone number, workplace, immigration status, or other private identifying details without their consent, or organizing others to do so.
• Intimate images. Sharing an intimate image of a person without their consent is a criminal offence in Canada. It results in immediate removal and a permanent ban.
• Spam and manipulation. Commercial spam, link-farming, coordinated inauthentic posting, and vote- or attention-gaming.
• Impersonation. Representing yourself as another person, a public figure, or Kalam Di Goonj.
• Infringement. Posting substantial copyrighted work, including full poems, articles, images, or recordings, without the right to do so. Short quotations with attribution in genuine discussion are permitted; see our Copyright & Rights page.
• Unlawful content, including counselling violence, child sexual abuse material, and anything we are legally required to remove.

4. What is expressly protected

These guidelines protect conversation rather than restrict it. We do not remove, and we will defend:

• legitimate reporting on discrimination, violence, and abuse, including naming what happened and who is responsible;
• history, including painful history such as Partition, 1984, and colonial rule, told truthfully and in context;
• criticism of governments, institutions, parties, leaders, publications including this one, and ideas of every kind;
• satire and sharp humour directed at power and at ideas;
• religious and political debate, including forceful argument that a belief, doctrine, or policy is wrong, conducted about ideas rather than by vilifying the people who hold them.

The test we apply, drawn from Canadian law and our own standards: does the contribution debate, report on, or mock an idea, institution, or action, or does it work to make a people hated? The first belongs here. The second does not.

5. How we respond

Our editorial team makes moderation decisions under our internal moderation procedure, proportionately and in context. Depending on severity and history, we may:

1. edit or partially remove a contribution, for example by redacting a slur or a phone number, noted where material;
2. remove the contribution;
3. warn the participant, identifying the rule engaged;
4. suspend participation for a stated period;
5. ban the account or participant from interactive spaces.

Severe conduct, including threats, doxxing, intimate images, and criminal hate content, bypasses this sequence and may result in immediate removal and ban and, where the law requires or safety demands, a report to the authorities. Removal of a comment is a judgement about the contribution, not about its author.

6. Appeals

If we act against your contribution or your account and you believe the decision was wrong, you may appeal. Write to [email protected] with a link to or description of the decision and your reasons. Appeals are handled under our Complaints, Appeals & Right of Reply policy: we acknowledge within five business days, a person not solely responsible for the original decision reviews it, and we give you the outcome with reasons. We reverse decisions where review shows we were wrong.

7. Reporting a problem

If you see a contribution that breaches these guidelines, report it to [email protected]. A report control will accompany comments when they launch. Include a link or screenshot and identify the rule you believe is engaged. We review reports promptly, act where warranted, and do not disclose who reported. Reporting in bad faith, to silence a viewpoint rather than flag genuine harm, is itself a misuse of these guidelines.

8. Limits of this policy

• Publishing a reader’s letter or comment is not an endorsement. Published views are the author’s or speaker’s own, and publication does not imply endorsement by the Company or the Publication.
• These guidelines do not promise that every unpleasant or offensive remark will be removed. Robust debate is sometimes uncomfortable, and lawful offence is not by itself a breach.
• They do not replace the law. Conduct may be lawful yet still outside our house rules, and our tolerance of a contribution is not legal clearance of it.