Four score and seven years ago, Farla started a blog so discussions about writing would stop consuming her LiveJournal. However, our audience has (obviously) expanded beyond a bunch of people who already knew each other talking about things they have in common. And it’s become increasingly clear to me lately that with that growth comes a need for a comment policy, because not everyone will always be acting in good faith, and Farla and I are busier than we used to be and can’t personally attend to every comment. Hell, I can’t attend to any comment, from the looks of it.
Penalties will be at mods’ discretion. That said, you can generally expect a warning -> increasing temp bans -> permaban trajectory, unless you do something really egregious.
These rules have four goals:
- To encourage productive conversation
- To make sure people don’t feel as though they are able to get away with attacking each other
- To allow people in marginalized groups to comment without fear of getting shouted down
- To allow people who have genuine questions, even 101 ones, to ask them without fear of getting shouted down
To that end, in no particular order, some commenting rules:
1. NO GODDAMN SPOILERS
Seriously, even when this was the only rule we had, people fucked it up. I’m actually going to start doling out bans for unmarked spoilers now. And look, you know what kind of spoilers I’m talking about. If the Obviously Evil Woman turns out to be Womanly and Evil, idgaf. But the person who fucked up Higurashi for me will never be forgiven.
2. Feel free to feed the trolls
I don’t care about over-the-top troll comments. They’re hilarious and fun to poke with stick. Go bananas. I also don’t think weird attempts to moderate obvious-troll comments are worth my time. If a troll says something egregiously offensive, like N-bombing or something, just flag it and someone will deal with it.
3. No ~just playing devil’s advocate~
Aggressively arguing with someone for the hell of it, especially when you’re taking a position of racism, sexism, or any other shitty ism, makes you an ass, even if you blame Satan for it. If you’ve got something shitty to say, at least own up to it instead of couching it in “I’m not racist, but…” terms. And let’s be serious, no one ever argues passionately something they don’t actually believe. It’s transparent as fuck.
4. I give no fucks about cursing
Literally no fucks.
5. Don’t continue to aggressively argue a point after being told what you’re saying is offensive and being asked to stop
Don’t say hurtful things to people. I can’t believe I have to put this in writing, but this has become an actual problem. If you say “X” and someone responds “X is hurtful, plz stop” and you decide to come back with “no it isn’t you’re just dramatic” you’re an asshole.
6. Don’t flip out at people for honest questions.
On the other hand, if you say “X is hurtful, plz stop” and they say, “I don’t understand, can you explain how?” there’s no reason to get nasty about that. We’re all fallible humans who make mistakes and have internalized biases that we need to learn our way out of. Just look back at all the times I say “bitch” in my old posts.
I don’t think anyone is ever obligated to answer “please explain,” as it can be emotionally draining, but there’s similarly no excuse for being mean to someone who means well. If you don’t want to/can’t answer, either ignore them or just say so. Don’t say hurtful things to people.
7. No insulting people based on race/sex/gender identity/etc.
The nature of this blog means that sometimes we do occasionally candidly discuss things like slurs and other offensive words. Whether or not you want to censor words in these discussions I’ll leave up to the individual. But there’s no excuse, ever, for using these words as a form of attack. Don’t say hurtful things to people.
8. No spam.
Remember that time someone posted links to tons of DF merchandise and then got pissy when I deleted the comment? Good times.
9. Stay on topic.
If you want to talk about a specific post or a specific comment on a specific post, you can comment there instead of bringing it up on the latest post. The comment feed doesn’t discriminate based on the age of the post you’re replying to, so you needn’t worry about your comment going unnoticed. Just keep things all in one place so people don’t have to jump between posts to follow a conversation, please.
…
I think these are all very common-sense rules, but now nobody will be able to claim they’re blindsided when I get irritated with you for breaking them. I also highly encourage the use of my @d-q email. I try to read every single comment, I really do, but sometimes it’s really not possible to understand the full tenor of a discussion from the brief looks I give the emails. It takes a village to raise a comment section, or something. If you see something, say something. Other cliches.