1. Keep your language clean
Including profanity in your comments is against the rules. If your comment contains foul language, veiled or not, it could be flagged, and if it is flagged, it will be deleted.
2. Making fun of the dead, injured or humiliated is really, really, low. Same goes for wishing harm or death on others
So low that we don’t allow it on our site. Comments like these poke fun, ridicule or make light of someone who has died, been injured or already been publicly humiliated.
Also, comments that wish death or harm on others are juvenile, mean-spirited, and have no place on our site.
3. Personal attacks, taunts, name-calling, and threats have no place in civil discussion.
We like civil discussion here, and we don’t appreciate it when people attempt to hijack civil discussions.
When you make a personal attack against another member in public, you’re taking a discussion out of one of ideas and into one of personalities. You’re also wasting the time and attention of those who aren’t involved in your battle. Calling another person names is a sure sign you have no arguments left to make — don’t do it.
Bottom line: Keep your comments focused on the issues, not on other commenters or the subjects of stories.
4. Posting hate / stereotyping / intimidating speech makes this place a worse place to be.
Comments that stereotype, intimidate or are hateful toward an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, or disability will be removed.
This is a big rule. It’s not okay, and the First Amendment has nothing to do with commenting on articles on a private corporation’s website.
5. Avoid repeating yourself.
When you repeatedly post the same or similar comment, you’re telling the world you have nothing new to say. If you have nothing new to say, why are you saying it? Don’t.
Instead of posting the same / similar stuff, post a link to your old comment, and explain why you think that old comment is relevant to the current conversation.
Specifically: Do not post a comment that is derived in whole or in part from your previous comments.
6. Stay relevant, please.
Writing irrelevant comments is easy and fun for you, but boring and a waste of time for everyone else. Examples of such comments:
* One that has little or nothing to do with the subject of the article.
* One that has little or nothing to do with the current conversation.
7. Cutting and pasting chunks from other sites is usually bad.
It’s particularly bad when the entirety of your comment is from another website.
Instead of cutting and pasting everything, cut and paste a representative quotation, link back to the original, and then explain why you think this quote is relevant.
8. Quoting offensive comments can set you up to be deleted yourself.
This rule is tricky: If we delete a comment, and you have replied to that comment, to get rid of the offending comment we need to delete your comment as well. That means your excellent response will have to go. Paraphrase or refer to the poster in order to rebut those thoughts. Even better: Flag the comment you’re replying to, and save yourself the time.
9. Watch out for that CAPS LOCK key.
You know who you are.
10. Don’t libel.
Defamatory or libelous comments will be removed. This is wikipedia’s defiinition of defamation (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation ): “The communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image. It is usually, but not always, a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).”
11. Don’t just link to your own blog post.
If you write a comment that consists of nothing but a title and a link to your own blog, well, you’re not really contributing to the discussion — you’re just advertising your own stuff.
Example: A comment that is nothing but “Take my poll about the new race car track: http://www.myblog.com/race-car-poll” will likely be removed.
12. Don’t invade someone’s privacy.
Examples of comments that may invade someone’s privacy include:
* Publishing a private citizen’s email address, phone number or address without their permission (publishing office information for, say, government officials is fair).
* Publishing information about someone’s family without their permission.
13. Be yourself.
Comments that purport to be from any person or entity not yourself will be removed. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not.
Also, use your real first and last name, and an email address that you check regularly. It’s clear this is an unenforceable rule, but moderators give more consideration and respect to board members who follow this.
14. Signing up multiple accounts isn’t allowed.
Multiple accounts are often used by those who want to avoid being banned. If we ban you temporarily, that means we want you to take a break from the site. If we ban you permanently, that means we don’t want you to write anything more on our site.
15. Be truthful.
Comments that falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity will be removed. Comments that fabricate, deceive or mislead will be removed.
16. Don’t infringe on copyrights.
Don’t post a comment that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party.
17. Don’t spam us.
If you write or post something that constitutes or contains affiliate marketing, link referral code, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing schemes, or unsolicited commercial advertisement, we will remove your comment.
18. Don’t post links to Not Safe For Work (NSFW) sites without warning.
For our sake, and the sake of the employers of the readers of our site, do not link to Not Safe For Work (NSFW) information without warning others it is NSFW.