You will need a WordPress username to comment (in order to keep the spammers under control). If you don’t have one, don’t worry, they’re free, just sign up here.
We do welcome reasonable commenters from the left side of the political spectrum. Just be sure to follow all the rules below, and we can have a good debate.
A quick word on the spam filter: It ain’t perfect. Sometimes a legitimate comment might be sent to the spam bin, especially if you’ve included several links (multiple links are very typical of spam). Don’t worry, we’ll be monitoring the spam folder and will release legitimate comments as quickly as possible.
With that said, here’s the rules… being a conservative, I’ll try to keep them short, sweet, and limited to just what is necessary for the smooth functioning of the blog.
First off, don’t spam. The definition of spam should be pretty clear to everyone, but links back to a commenter’s own blog kind of fall into a grey area, so here’s the guidelines we’ll be using: a link to your blog’s main page is probably gonna be considered spam; a link to a specific post on your blog probably won’t be called spam, so long as the topic of your blog’s post is generally related to the topic of the post you’re commenting in. If it doesn’t fall into either of those categories, it’s probably off-topic anyway.
Because of a new type of comment spam, where a person or bot posts what looks like a legitimate comment and then includes a spam link, we are being very skeptical of links from first-time commenters. We recommend that you hang around and comment for a while, so we know you’re a legitimate reader, before trying to link. We’re not saying that no links from new commenters will survive, but then again, they might not.
Beyond spam, anything that is disruptive to a good discussion is not permitted. Four things, specifically, are “crash and burn” offenses, meaning you can be banned for them immediately, with no warning required and no appeal allowed:
- Sock-puppeting.
- Returning after a ban without permission (with or without a different username).
- Insulting any of the bloggers.
- Threats of any kind against anyone, blogger or commenter.
All commenters are also expected to follow the rules of any good debate, including but not limited to:
- Providing evidence for your assertions when requested (or even before requested).
- Acknowledging the valid points made by the other side.
- Acknowledging when one of your own points has been successfully refuted.
- Avoiding logical fallacies such as the argumentum ad hominem.
Of course, you should always follow the instructions of the blogger(s).
The blogger(s) reserve the right to edit or remove any comment or commenter for any reason. But, don’t be afraid, we’ve got better things to do than mess with acceptable comments.
The blogger(s) also reserve the right to change these rules at any time.
One final FYI (not really a rule): The blog is set to close all comments a week (7 calendar days) after it’s originally posted. Extensions can be granted (by changing the date on the original post), but a debate has to be something special to merit that. Please be aware of this so that you can complete your discussion and make all the points you want to before the comments are closed by the software.
