Ban Hammer Time

Due in part to the recent massive derailing of, and general unpleasantness within, a certain discussion thread here, I will be enforcing my comments policy more stringently, especially when it comes to personal attacks, and off-topic posts that I find tiresome and/or disruptive.

Also, I'm introducing short-term bans for people who are breaking the rules but don't deserve forever bans. Blogger doesn't let me literally ban people; I just delete their comments. If I've "banned" someone and they keep posting, just ignore them. I will delete their comments when I see them.  

I've updated  my comments policy page to reflect this. If you're new here, read it.

Comments policy: Cool it

Folks, some of you need to cool it with the gratuitously nasty personal attacks in your comments. I've been cutting some people slack because they are new to the comments here, and because I like to practice relatively hands-off moderation, but I will start deleting comments if this continues, and repeated violators will be banned entirely. Regardless of which side of the debate you're on. If you haven't already, read the comments policy.

Also not ok: Justifying violence against men or women. For example, this recent comment from witman suggesting it might be "patriotic" to shoot feminist elected officials. (I've screencapped it because I will be deleting it, but for now you can go see it for yourself to confirm I'm not making it up.)

Hey, where's my comment?! Hint: Spam filter

If you post a comment and don't see it up on the site immediately, that means it's been caught by Blogger's overactive spam filter, which unfortunately I can't shut off. Unless your comment is incredibly foul or otherwise violates my fairly liberal comments policy, I will un-filter it as soon as I see it. Sometimes this will happen quickly, sometimes slowly. I'm not always online.

If your comment is posted and then later vanishes, that means I deliberately deleted it. But unless you've posted something truly awful, or spammy, or you're among the tiny number of those I've banned (which can be counted on one hand), this isn't going to happen to you.

Comments policy updated

Please, no monologuing.

I have added a few new comment guidelines, and clarified one of the old ones. Please read. I think these will help to curtail some of the derailing that goes on in the comments here, and will help those who want to have actual substantive discussions.

As anyone who comments here knows, I like to be as hands-off as possible with comment moderation, and I don't censor people for disagreeing with me. But I will be more aggressive in the future in dealing with those who seem more interested in disrupting or monologuing than discussing, and those who repeatedly misrepresent what others say.

Comments policy

I want there to be lively debate in my comments section. I'm not going to ban anyone for disagreeing with me. But I have to enforce the following rules to fend off the forces of chaos and douchebaggery:

Registration is required in order to post comments.

My comment policy in short: I'm mostly hands-off, but if you're persistently offensive, disruptive, or tedious, I'll delete comments; if you continue, you'll get a short-term ban or, in rare cases, be banned permanently. Big no nos: nasty personal attacks and/or slurs. I usually warn people first; if you persist after a warning, expect at least a short-term ban.

The details:

Don't say things so vile and hateful that if you said them to Gandhi, he'd punch you in the head. Calling someone an idiot is fine. Lots of people are idiots. Just use caution when moving much beyond this level of invective. Back-and-forth namecalling is tedious for everything.

A few specific things that will get your comment (and perhaps you) banned as soon as I see it: the words "cunt" or "faggot," used to disparage people or groups, references to sex organs, hateful slurs, gratuitously nasty personal attacks, flagrant lies about me or anyone else, threats.

If you regularly post comments that violate these basic guidelines, you're done here. I'll delete every comment you make, even those that don't violate the guidelines.

REALLY IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If your comment simply doesn't post, it's not because I deleted it. It's because Blogger's spam filter has filtered it. The spam filter is unreliable, but unfortunately I can't turn it off. If your comment follows the guidelines, and wasn't filtered because, say, it was full of profanity and slurs, I will un-filter it as soon as I see it. That may take awhile, as I am not always in front of my computer.

EDIT: ADDITIONAL RULES:

Stay on topic, more or less: We all go off-topic from time to time. If you're constantly going off topic in a way that's tedious or disruptive, I'll delete your comments.


No more than two posts in a row, unless you are responding specifically to arguments from other commenters and want to break it up into different comments. If you have an afterthought, or a correction, and want to post a second comment, that's perfectly fine. If your comment is so long it needs a second part, that's ok, but seriously think about being more concise. Posting every thought that pops into your head in comment after comment? No. Blog comments are supposed to be about dialogue, not monologue.

Don't quote entire articles. If you want to post about something you found elsewhere, post a brief excerpt and/or summary and a link. Don't post the whole thing.


Don't misrepresent what other commenters say or put words in their mouth. This is already covered in the "don't lie" bit above, but I want to reiterate it. If you misunderstand something someone else says, or have a different interpretation (and a good argument to back that up), that's fine. But repeatedly misrepresenting others, particularly after they have corrected you, will get your comments deleted.

Registraton is now required to post comments here

We're having a lovely discussion.

In order to cut down on some of the, er, noise in the comment section, from now on only registered users will be allowed to comment here.

It's a bit of a hassle, but I'd rather do this than to enable comment moderation, which is even more of a hassle for me and for everyone else. I hope that all of you regular posters who are actually trying to have real discussion will stick around. It really doesn't take much time to register.

Oh, and the rest of my comment policy still stands: Don't say things so vile and hateful that if you said them to Gandhi, he'd punch you in the head. No gratuitously nasty personal attacks. No really hateful slurs. (More specifics here.) Otherwise, go at it.

EDIT: If you try to post a comment and it simply doesn't show up, that's not my doing; it's Blogger's spam filter at work. I would turn it off if I could. I will un-filter comments as soon as I see them in the spam folder, so long as they aren't vile/hateful, as spelled out above.

New Comment Policy: Chill the fuck out

Be fucking polite.

Enough. I know this is the internet, and all, but rein it in a little. I'm going to start actually enforcing my comment policy, which is basically: Don't say things so vile and hateful that if you said them to Gandhi, he'd punch you in the head.

Calling someone an idiot is fine. Lots of people are idiots. Just use caution when moving much beyond this level of invective.

A few specific things that will get your comment banned as soon as I see it: the words "cunt" or "faggot," references to sex organs, gratuitously nasty personal attacks.

I'm not going to go back and delete old comments, but rather leave them up as a reminder of why we can't have nice things on the internet. But no more of this shit.

New Comments Policy: Don't be a Massive Douchebag

Gandhi vs. Hogan

As anyone who has looked at the comments on this blog knows, I am averse to censoring comments, even when they are filled with profanity and insults. But in recent days there have been a couple of comments -- literally two, out of a total of 439 on the site -- that have crossed the line, and I've deleted them. There have been several others I have considered deleting as well. 

So I'm instituting a new comments policy, and here it is, in a nutshell: Don't post shit that is so gratuitously nasty it would cause Gandhi himself to punch you in the head.

I'm not demanding that you refrain from salty language, or that you be politically correct or even that you try to be polite. What I am demanding is an end to gratuitously nasty personal attacks on other people who post comments here. Threatening people, also not good.

Calling someone an "idiot," fine. Calling someone a "douchebag," fine. Not so fine: calling someone a cunt, whore, "lezzo," or cumbucket. That sort of thing. If you really cannot make an argument without calling your opponent one of these things, or something similar, you should probably read up a bit on the fine art of argument. I'm not going to debate why certain terms are acceptable and others aren't. It's my blog, my rules.

If you post something that isn't gratuitously nasty and it doesn't appear on this blog, it's not because I have censored it. It's Blogger's less-than-perfect spam filter at work, and I will un-spam it as soon as I see it in the spam box. Sometimes this will take a while, because, you know, I don't live in front of the computer.

Lest anyone get up in arms about how I am censoring free debate or "unpopular opinion," I would like to point out again that up until this point I have deleted only two out of 439 non-spam comments for crossing the line. Neither one actually advanced an argument of any kind.

I would really like to never have to delete a comment again. But that's really up to you guys.

Oh, and to everyone who posts interesting, funny, substantive comments here without resorting to the "c"-word: Thanks!