Ladies and gentlemen, since the inception of this blog, I’ve held all of you to a sort of informal comment policy, and it has worked fine for that time.  However, as the blog has grown, I have seen the need for a more formal comment policy.  Note that while I am only writing them on a dedicated page now, all of these were in effect since the beginning.  While it is certainly a part of it, this is not just a list of rules I am imposing on you; rather, it is a contract between you, your fellow commenters, and the writers of this blog.

  • Above all, keep it civil.  I enjoy debates as much as the next person, but no matter our differences, we are all human, and while I do not know specifically where everyone is coming from, I would wager that many of us are also from the same country.
  • On that note, due to the nature of the internet itself, all we know of each other is what is said in the comments.  As the writer, you know a fair amount about me, but your fellow commenters only know a username and what has been said.  Because of these last two points,I will not tolerate personal attacks of any sort.
  • Try to keep the explicit language to a minimum.  Chances are, you can make your point without cursing at someone.  This kind of behavior is not enough to get a comment moderated on its own, though I will go in and put stars in place of letters, such as f***.
  • I promise not to censor comments.  This story, being posted on blog format, there will be differences of opinion, even clashes of thought or even belief.  You guys want to debate that knock yourselves out, but please keep it civil and keep it on topic or at least related to the topic (try not to tangent to far away!!!!).  However i will moderate comments that do not follow this policy, and continued violation will blacklist your IP, and continued offense after warning will result in your IP being banned.
  • That being said, if you’re trying to leave a comment that is clearly trying to get a backlink to your site, I’ll edit it out, though most of the time I’ll leave the name intact.  This only goes for things that are completely unrelated, spam sites, and the like.  If you’re leaving a link to a site that’s at least somewhat related to the topic, or if I visit the site and nothing raises my eyebrows, I’ll leave it alone.  Some people do leave comments saying “nice post”, or something along those lines, but they link to a site that isn’t one you’d really want to go to because they’re full of affiliate links, spam, etc.

I have no problem with things like “+1″ or “nice post” – I’ve said +1 on comments myself several times.  My issue is with the obvious spam links.

  • This list is not exhaustive.  Generally, follow common sense when posting your comments, and of course, I can add to, update, or change this policy at any time as necessary.