Our netiquette

Add something on töp – all together!

A little more respect, empathy and benevolence on the WWW.
We offer you space for this on this website - but also on:

We are looking forward to a lively, factual and friendly exchange with you - no matter if you want to post suggestions, personal opinions, praise, criticism and sometimes even express anger. But within reasonable limits, especially for the latter. Please read on ...

Our rules for digital politeness

What you need to know

• Language: If the channel is in English, please use the same language and write in English.
  As an international company, we use English as our common language. In order not to exclude your fellow users from any communication, you should therefore write your posts and comments in English. However, if you happen to post a message in another language we ask for an added English translation for all
• Authenticity: Always write your posts under your name, don't pretend to be someone else
• Identification: umlaut reserves the right to delete posts that cannot be assigned to a specific user
• Respect the rights of others: For example, do not post photos of people who have not explicitly agreed to the publication, or without the permission of the photographer if you did not take the photo yourself
• Comments and reviews are public. We reserve the right to show and share your content on our communication channels. You can object to this by placing two asterisks (**) in front of your comments
• Expressions of opinion should always be marked as such

Our tips for you

• Be nice to one another! Always favour a respectful and friendly atmosphere to reflect our values and way of life
• Everyone has - within the legal framework - the right to their own free opinion. However, an opinion should be justified with arguments
• Cynicism, irony and sarcasm are hard to recognise when written. Please be careful with these stylistic devices
• Stay objective, don’t get provoked
• Words written completely in capital letters or multiple exclamation marks are perceived as 'shouting'
• Do not publish your personal data or phone numbers
• Report inappropriate posts
• Please note that there actually is 'a human being' sitting opposite you, not a computer
• Keep your texts short
• Pay attention to spelling and punctuation, so that people understand you well

What is not allowed

• Verbal attacks, insults, threats
• The expression of discrimination, defamation, libel and slander of any kind
• Calls for violence and the glorification of violence
• Right-wing or left-wing extremist ideas, fanatism, racism and hate propaganda
• Pornography and obscenities
• Election and party advertising
• Comments with promotional purpose or other commercial content
• Infringement of the rights of third parties, e.g. quotations without indication of source
• Appeals for donations, campaigns or rallies
• Non-topic-related comments and discussions
• Links to external websites without reference to the topic
• Publication of private and personal data (e.g. addresses, e-mail addresses or telephone numbers of third parties)
• Spamming, trolling and bashing

We reserve the right to delete comments if they do not comply with these rules and to block people who repeatedly violate our netiquette.

Every user is responsible for the posts he or she publishes. umlaut does not assume any liability for them.

We reserve the right to adapt our netiquette.

It takes each and every one of you! Don't put your energy into anger, resentment and hatred - invest it in a healthy digital coexistence instead.

With our best regards

Your umlauts.


Please always communicate with us directly via the comment functions of our umlaut communication channels.

In very urgent cases please text us with the subject 'Online Editorial Team' to
beyond@umlaut.com