FAQ: Comments & Moderation

Q: What is the Comment Policy?

The Webmaster pre-moderates comments on our blog posts and post-moderates comments on stories. We never censor comments based on political or ideological point of view. We only delete those comments that include the following transgressions:

• are abusive, off-topic, use excessive foul language
• include ad hominem attacks including comments that celebrate the death or illness of any person, public figure or otherwise
• contain racist, sexist, homophobic and other slurs
• are solicitations and/or advertising for personal blogs and websites
• thread spamming (you’ve posted this same comment elsewhere on the site
• are posted with the explicit intention of provoking other commenters.
• contains content that may infringe the copyright or intellectual property rights of others or other applicable laws or regulations.
Q: I posted a comment. Why can’t I see it on the site?

A: There are two scenarios for which your comment may not appear:
1. It may be pending approval. Comments on the blog are moderated BEFORE they appear on the site, and this takes time. Since the volume of comments on the site has grown rapidly, there is often a delay between a comment being posted and it being approved, especially during peak hours. We appreciate your patience and ask that you refrain from posting the same comment repeatedly.

2. Your comment violated the policy above. We pride ourselves in providing a medium for engaging and thought-provoking stories and encourage our users to speak their minds freely, provided comments fall within our commenting policy. We must respect our writers and protect them from vicious and inflammatory comments. They too are entitled to free speech- the right to share their opinions without being subject to scathing and mean-spirited remarks.

Q: Why am I blocked from commenting on Forum?
A: There are a few scenarios in which a comment might be blocked:

1. A comment is extremely abusive, off-topic, uses excessive foul language, or includes an ad hominem attack
2. If a commenter has previously posted comments that are abusive, off-topic, used excessive foul language, or include ad hominem attacks, a moderator may decide to ban the commenter’s IP address. This means the abusive commenter is banned from commenting on the site in the future, even if the later comments are not abusive. We ban IPs because the sheer volume of comments makes it too time consuming to individually delete comments written by someone with a pattern of abuse.