We made the decision to remove the dislike button in order to continue to foster and build positive dialogue within our community. The removal of the dislike button will help bring our commenting platform more in line with industry trends and the various social platforms our users are already comfortable with using (e.g. facebook, which has no ‘dislike’ button).

Even with the removal of the ‘dislike’ function, users will still have the ability to flag comments that they believe are inappropriate in line with CBC’s comment moderation guidelines.

This is an indicator of how active a Community member is (e.g. number of comments, replies, shares etc.) however it has no impact on the moderation of user’s comments or priority of how comments are posted.

Every few years, CBC is required to conduct a thorough review of the services we offer to ensure we are operating in the most effective and efficient way. Viafoura's comment platform was selected during the most recent review because they offered a suite of features that had been requested from our community for quite some time - including the ability to display a complete history of comments in member's profiles, link to comments from within member's profiles, receive an email notification when another community member replies to a comment you have posted and share a comment with social networks or through email.

You can access a list of your previously submitted comments in your profile. You can access your profile by clicking on your Display Name, which appears beside any comment you have submitted or in place of the Log In button once you are logged in.

Most of the comments submitted to CBC.ca stories are pre-moderated before they are published. If the volume of comments to review is high, it can take several minutes before your comment is published. You can always see the status of your comments in your profile. You can access your profile by clicking on your Display Name, which appears beside any comment you have submitted or in place of the Log In button once you are logged in.

Submission status definitions

Awaiting Moderation...: Your comment has been submitted and is waiting on a moderator to review it before it is published to CBC.ca.

Content Disabled: The moderators have reviewed your comment and have determined that it does not meet CBC/Radio-Canada's Submission Guidelines.

Blank: A comment with neither of the above flags means that it has been published to CBC.ca.

You can click on any comment in your profile to be taken to the story page where the comment was originally submitted.

If you have chosen to register for CBC.ca using an email address and password, you can change your profile picture by accessing your profile. You can access your profile by clicking on your Display Name, which appears beside any comment you have submitted or in place of the Log In button once you are logged in. Once inside your profile, click the Settings tab and select a new picture using the Choose/Browse buttons on the right side of the modal window.

If you have registered with Facebook or Google, CBC automatically gets your profile picture from the social network. It is not possible for you to change it within the CBC.ca site, you will have to change it on Facebook or Google.

It is our aim to provide lively forums for Canadians to share their opinions on topical issues.  CBC/Radio-Canada’s many online communities are spaces for Canadians to talk to each other.

CBC/Radio-Canada engages with Canadians on many different social media platforms (for example - Facebook and Twitter). CBC/Radio-Canada selects the social media platform that best fits each specific online community.

CBC/Radio-Canada engages with Canadians on many different platforms, which are selected to best facilitate engagement with each specific community. For example the CBC.ca community submits over 300,000 comments per month, predominantly on News and Sports stories on CBC.ca. We frequently receive over 12,000 comments a day, and experience peaks where we receive 1,000+ comments per hour. As a result CBC.ca needs a commenting platform that can handle that considerable volume.  Since we started in 2008, over 800,000 members have contributed to the CBC.ca online community by submitting, reviewing, rating and/or reporting abuse on content contributed by the community.

The CBC Radio online community (along with other CBC communities, including News and Sports) engages frequently on Facebook and Twitter. TV Programs such as, "Dragon's Den" and "Being Erica" have blogs that are popular with their respective online communities.

Although we reserve the right to do so (as outlined in the Terms of Use - http://www.cbc.ca/aboutcbc/discover/termsofuse.html#submissions) CBC/Radio-Canada does not typically edit comments.

CBC allows the use of pseudonyms in its online community spaces. Pseudonyms are subject to CBC/Radio-Canada's Submission Guidelines - http://www.cbc.ca/aboutcbc/discover/submissions.html. In the online world, many people prefer to use nicknames (including 'real-sounding' names) for privacy and security purposes and it is standard to accept them for the purposes of this type of commentary. Similarly, some people also withhold their location information for privacy and security purposes.

CBC/Radio-Canada online community members are asked to provide true, accurate, current and complete information about themselves and failure to do so may result in suspension and/or termination of access, as per the Terms of Use - http://www.cbc.ca/aboutcbc/discover/termsofuse.html#registration state.

Comments are not necessarily open on every CBC/Radio-Canada story, article, program community and/or blog.

CBC/Radio-Canada editorial staff select what will be open for comments (e.g. stories/topics with a major impact at home or abroad). New stories are opened for comments throughout the day as they arise. For CBCNews.ca, generally speaking this means that most if not all stories on the News homepage have commenting as well as a large number of stories in the other major News sections, including World, Politics and Business and others.

CBC/Radio-Canada also closes comments where we consider the legal liability too great. e.g. a publication ban might be breached.

The following link contains additional information about past commenting changes - http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/02/cbcnewsca-introducing-new-community-features.html

Currently all CBC News & Sports stories are generally set to expire commenting after 3 days. 

All profile "usernames" are subject to CBC/Radio-Canada’s Submission Guidelines - http://www.cbc.ca/aboutcbc/discover/submissions.html. It is common for names to be similar, if not identical. Many people choose to differential their name with the use of special characters (e.g. numbers or underscores). Near duplicate names are often seen in the online communities.

CBC/Radio-Canada does not allow allow the impersonation of individuals or misleading usernames. If you feel strongly that you are being impersonated, we will need you to illustrate this for us (e.g. using comment examples).

Please Contact Us - http://www.cbc.ca/contact/.

Our procedures have always included banning users. However, we have found that it has not been an effective deterrent in the online world, as the user will simply register another account. This puts our moderation team at a disadvantage, as we don’t know who to look out for. We also find these re-registrants can return with an increasingly negative attitude. That said, we have and will continue to ban users if we feel it is necessary.

CBC does not use cookies to maintain user sessions. Rather, we store the logged-in status in the browser's session. The intended behaviour is that a member who has logged into CBC will stay logged in for as long as their browser stays open or until they log out. Once the member closes their browser window, and navigates to CBC on a new window, they will have to log in again. On older browsers such as IE7 we do use cookies for compatibility, and this cookie will also last until the browser is closed.

No, you don't have to log in using Facebook or Google.

We offer the option for you to log in with social networks to make it easier for you, so you don't need to remember an extra password.

If you don't want to use Facebook or Google, you always have the option to log in using your email address.

Our commenting system will notify you by email if someone responds to a comment you published or if a member or story you are following posts a new comment.

You can update your notification settings by clicking your display name beside any comment you have submitted or above the comment module and accessing the Settings tab. The email notification settings are at the bottom of your profile and provide the following options:

Immediately: You will receive an email immediately each time a member replies to your submissions or comments by members or stories you are following.
Hourly Digest: You will receive an hourly email with a list of replies to your submissions or comments by members or stories you are following.
Daily Digest (default): You will receive a daily email with a list of replies to your submissions or comments by members or stories you are following.
Never: Select this option if you don't want to receive any notifications about commenting.

June 26, 2013, CBC launched a new commenting platform and member registration system. We did not carry over any existing "Trusted" status accounts from the old system to the new one. At this time, there is no such program in use on CBC.ca.

Commenting on mobile is a feature we plan to offer in the future.

Right now, commenting will work on some devices, but not others - this is just coincidental as CBC has not officially integrated the commenting features into our mobile sites or apps.