You Can't Silence Us

From time to time, we have people that come here and don’t want to be polite and we have to post these rules to remind them of the rules here. It happens about once a year or so, we get someone who comes here and decides they can’t engage in subjects without taking them personally and resorting to personal attacks. This is the first time in two years someone has gotten banned and we’ve had to remind people of the rules here.

It’s just rude to use your second or third comment here to be a personal attack on someone, especially the blog owner.

The overriding concept here is that I am paying for this server, the software that runs it, and providing the content. Since I am the one paying for it, that makes it mine. Some people have a problem with this and begin shouting about free speech. Free speech doesn’t apply here on my property. Want free speech? Pay for your own blog. I will even rent you some server space. You can say whatever you want on there, including calling me names. There are a few people who rent space from me, and not all of us see eye to eye. Your space, your rules.

I allow comments here because I enjoy the back and forth of a good debate. However, commenting here is the virtual equivalent of talking to me while sitting in my living room.

Debate is a good thing. A well reasoned debate changes minds and can influence the opinions of others. If you make a good case for your opinion, you can win over the opinions of others by presenting them with a perspective or situation that may not have occurred to them. Name calling and shouting at people does not change the opinions of others, generates hard feelings, and is nothing more than chimps shouting at each other inside of the money house.

If you and some of my acquaintances are sitting in my living room having a conversation, there are things that you wouldn’t say without expecting either a punch in the mouth, being asked to leave and never return, or both. Try to think of comments here as a face to face conversation, and don’t type a comment here that you would not say to someone’s face.

So with that out of the way, here are the rules for commenting on this blog:

1. The owner of this blog (me) has the final say on what you can and cannot post. It’s my house, I make the rules. Content here is moderated, and I will not be approving any comments that I find, in my sole judgement, to be unworthy. If you make a comment here and it doesn’t appear within a few hours, it likely wasn’t approved for some reason. Or it wound up in the SPAM filter for some reason. You can always drop me an email and ask.
2. Deliberately posting statements that are aimed at insulting the blog owner (me) will probably get your comment tossed in the trash. Feel free to disagree with me, just don’t call names or impugn my character. If I wanted someone to purposely insult me, I don’t need to pay for a blog server, I can just go to my ex-wife’s house for free.
3. Don’t deliberately insult others. No personal attacks. Feel free to attack ideas. Heap scorn on silly or illogical opinions, just don’t make it personal. If your counter argument is weak enough that you must resort to personal attacks to gain leverage, perhaps your argument needs work or is simply wrong.
4. If you are making a comment about one of my posts, it should be made on the post that you are commenting on, not on another, unrelated post. Offending posts may be deleted or disallowed, purely at my discretion. This is an attempt to both maintain readability and to reduce trolls.
5. No spam. If you come on here to sell your product or website, that isn’t going to be allowed. This is an ad free site, because I hate all of the ads on the Internet. I don’t make money on this Blog, and no one else does, either. Including you.
6. If you demand that anyone provide evidence for an assertion that they are making, then you must hold yourself to the same standard when making a counterargument. It takes time and effort to research sources, and replying with “Nuh, uh, I refuse to believe that” while not providing sources of your own to refute them is how an 8 year old debates. If you make an assertion, it is your responsibility to prove it. None of this crap of making a point then when asked for proof responding with “google it.” It was your point, it’s your responsibility to back it up with at least SOME form of evidence.
7. Usually, I just don’t approve comments that are out of bounds. If you are close to the line, I may approve it with a warning. If repeated out of bounds comments become tiresome, I will warn you.
8. If warnings don’t work and you keep at it, I will ban you from ever posting on this site again. I know that you can pull tricks like IP spoofing, changing your name, etc. So don’t think doing that is going to earn you “I’m so clever” points. It doesn’t make you clever, it makes you an ass. People have done that before, and it really isn’t a new idea.
9. Too many people using those tricks to circumvent the rules is what got us full time moderation, which is a major pain in my ass, and a major time waster for me.
10. When in doubt, please refer to rule #1. These rules can change with no notice, and rules may or may not apply retroactively. That’s up to me. See rule #1.

Those are the rules. They seem rather easy to follow. I am resisting the use of registered accounts for the reason that I don’t like registering anything. However, if too many people violate these rules, I will be forced to have accounts. Please don’t force me to do that.

My readers are fairly well behaved. This blog gets about 3 million hits per year, and we have well over a thousand unique commenters, but an exact count is impossible since we don’t have accounts. Out of the more than 40,000 approved comments here, there have only been 40 people on the ban list, and the vast majority of them were people spamming the blog. There are less than 10 people who have been banned for misbehavior.