The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news site for people who care about Connecticut.  Our mission is to provide content that engages readers and sheds light on issues important to life in our state.

We intend our site to be used by readers as a place for civil, articulate and thought-provoking discussion, and we encourage vigorous discussion and expression of diverse views about our stories, blogs and other content.

We soon will be amending our commenting protocol to require that commenters use their actual names and post through Facebook when they have something to add to the discussion of an issue. We ask that comments be no longer than 250 words. If you have a longer point to make, please consider submitting an op-ed article.

Comments are screened before posting, and they are subject to The Mirror’s Terms of Use posted at the bottom of our website’s homepage. We do not edit comments.

The Mirror will not publish comments that include slurs, foul language, personal attacks or that have a tone that could clearly insult the views, intelligence or character of someone in the news or a fellow commenter.  We will not post comments that use nicknames or altered or invented names that denigrate others. Nor will we publish anything that appears likely to hijack the comment thread into an off-topic, provocative or less civil direction.

Any comment assumed to be spam will be deleted and marked as comment spam.

We will not publish long sections of books or non-Mirror articles, though we will publish links to other sites or the web address of a video from YouTube or another site after we screen them.

Readers who consistently violate The Mirror’s commenting policies will be barred from commenting.

Please note that The Mirror makes every effort to post comments as quickly as possible. But because our small staff is very busy, we can’t always do so immediately.