Comment policy

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Last update: October 12th 2009.

The main thing to keep in mind:

Comments should be about the post or other comments, not about commenters!

If you do that and keep your language PG-13 then my comment policy will be of little concern to you.

For more control over how your comments appear:

  • Avatar: If you want to change your avatar, the picture that appears in the upper right-hand corner of the comment, go to gravatar.org. There you can upload any image you want.
  • Italics: Put <em> at the beginning of what you want to italicize and </em> at the end.
  • Boldface: Put <strong> at the beginning of what you want to make bold and </strong> at the end.
  • Links: Put a space before and after a URL (the thing that starts with http://) – or put it on a separate line like I do – and it will become a working link.
  • Corrections: If I see two comments that are almost the same, then I will delete the older one assuming that the new one is a correction.
  • Deletions: Email me (abagond at gmail) or leave a comment and I will delete any of your own comments. If someone is calling you names or making personal remarks and I agree, I will delete those too.

Note: I sometimes edit comments for readability, like by highlighting quotes with italics, using paragraphs and correct spelling, but I do not shorten them or take anything out.

Moderation: The following comments are thrown to moderation and will not appear right away:

  • Has more than two links
  • Uses certain bad words:
    • obscene:

      • body parts:
        • male: cock, dick
        • female: cunt, pussy, tits
      • sex: fuck
      • substances: piss, shit
    • slurs:
      • blacks: gorilla, kaffir, nigger
      • whites: cracker, nazi, skinhead, whitey
      • Hispanic: spic
      • Asians: chink, gook
      • women: bitch
      • others: idiot, motherfucker

Any form of these words are also moderated, like fucking and dickhead.

Note that these words are fine: arse, ass, bloody, damn, hell.

If your comment is moderated it might appear in minutes or hours. Allow up to 24 hours unless the latest post says that I am away. The same goes for comments that get stuck in my spam filter.

I try to read all comments. I comment where I feel I have something useful to add. Often other commenters beat me to making the points that I would have made. But sometimes people say strange stuff and I just do not know where to begin.

I reserve the right to delete comments that are:

  • spam
  • advertising
  • ad hominem attacks
  • plagiarized
  • not in English
  • way off topic
  • written using bad language (moderated words)
  • have naked pictures or links to such pictures

An ad hominem attack is where you attack the commenter not the comment, like by calling him names or questioning his intelligence, character, motive, age or education. Even fools are right some of the time. Ad hominem attacks prove nothing and only make it unpleasant for everyone else.

Advertising means not just trying to sell something but also providing a link to your website while making some general comment that gives no sign of having read the post.

If I delete a comment of yours, take it as a warning. If I find myself deleting too many of your comments, I will mark you as a source of spam and you will not be able to post here again.

If I suspect you are a sock puppet (commenting under different names), I will out you. I can tell if comments are coming from the same computer or the same town.

I do not want to punish or limit ideas. These rules do not punish ideas but  certain ways of expressing them. In my experience those who express their ideas in these ways are not all that serious to begin with.

At first I had no comment policy at all, so I have learned all of this the hard way.

If you have questions or suggestions about my comment policy, then please comment below or contact me.

Peace.

See also:

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