A reminder about our comments policy

There have been a number of recent attempts to post comments which are in violation of our year and a half old policy on leaving responses to posts. I have this week deleted a number of comments (all from right wing visitors) which personally demeaned me and contained unacceptable language.

I bring the subject up because of these attempts, and also because SLOG and HorsesAss have this week decided to actually create comment policies.

This blog constitutes part of NPI's presence in cyberspace. It's our house, so our rules apply. We don't tolerate hate speech, personal attacks, or trolling here. Period. Muck left in our comment threads will be cleaned out swiftly.

Some right wing visitors have complained about censorship. Let me explain something to you guys, using the words of Fox Noise hatemonger Bill O'Reilly:

BRADY: You know, there's no question DailyKos is clearly on the left. And one thing that comes up, especially with those open forums is you get a lot of lunatics come up. And I'm sure - I look at their site.

O'REILLY: You know, you - look, I have my own website. We don't - open forum is bull. All right? You can regulate what's on your website.

You see? "You can regulate what's on your own website." For once, in just that one emphasized phrase, O'Reilly actually makes sense.

And not only can we control the content of our own website, but, as responsible webmasters, we should. We believe in an open forum with limits, just as we believe in a capitalist economy with regulation.

DailyKos, incidentally, has its own mechanism for cleaning out garbage: the community enforced troll rating system, which is backed up by Markos, his technical administrators, and his team of editors.

Our comments policy has been in place since the beginning of 2006. It is as follows:

• No profanity. We don't care what your political persuasion is - no profanity, please. There is no need for it. The right is trying to engage in a culture war. Their goals are to divide and disrupt. When swearing matches erupt, that's a victory for them.
• Don't type in all caps. All caps is equivalent to shouting. Again, the right is trying to engage in a culture war. When shouting matches erupt, they win. Commenters who type in all caps will be first warned and then banned if they continue to comment in all caps.
• Have something of value to say. We're going to be flexible with the definition of what we consider to be value. Value could be humor (including snark and satire), a polite correction, a personal viewpoint, new information, and so on. Value is a broad definition. For our policy, it covers everything that we don't consider trolling (or disruptive behavior). Comments that are totally off topic will not considered to qualify as having value.

Additionally, readers who choose to leave responses on our posts are expected to follow the guidelines of Online Integrity, which are mandatory for all of our contributors. These are:

• Private persons are entitled to respect for their privacy regardless of their activities online. This includes respect for the non-public nature of their personal contact information, the inviolability of their homes, and the safety of their families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted. The separateness of private persons’ professional lives should also be respected as much as is reasonable.
• Public figures are entitled to respect for the non-public nature of their personal, non-professional contact information, and their privacy with regard to their homes and families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted.
• Persons seeking anonymity or pseudonymity online should have their wishes in this regard respected as much as is reasonable. Exceptions include cases of criminal, misleading, or intentionally disruptive behavior.
• Violations of these principles should be met with a lack of positive publicity and traffic.

Finally, when you comment, please use only one screen name or handle to identify yourself (use something appropriate - not "Thomas Jefferson" or "Darcy Burner Really Hates You") and refrain from posting the entirety of others' works when you say something. Your comment should be yours, not somebody else's. We will, as we have in the past, enforce our policy.

Please respect it and don't force us to delete what you write.