Following are my rules for commenting on my blog. Please note that I will not censor opinions on this blog (with one exception, which I’ll get to in a bit). So if you get deleted or banned, it’s because you broke a rule, not because I disagree with you.
1. This is my blog, and you are a guest here.
That means that whatever I say goes. If I ask you to stop something, then please stop it. If I want to post about something you don’t like, that’s my prerogative. Don’t like that? Then don’t read or comment here.
2. Don’t make everything about you.
It happens all the time at this sort of blog: every time we try to talk about our own experiences and frustrations with the world, some jerk with an inflated sense of entitlement decides to take it desperately personally and tell us to shut up. Don’t be that jerk. If a post isn’t about you, there’s no need to make it about you. And if it is about you… well, would you mind listening to what I’m actually saying before excoriating me?
3. Don’t use slurs against groups of people.
You know the ones I mean–”fag,” “retard,” etc. Even if you think they’re divorced enough from their original meanings not to be hateful (PROTIP: they aren’t), they’re still unnecessarily hurtful and Othering, and so they don’t fly here. (Quoting someone else saying those words is fine, as long as you’re not using said quote to insult someone. Ironic reclamatory usage is also fine, but using these words as an insult and calling it “ironic” to get away with it is not–and I can tell the difference.)
4. Check your privilege.
If you don’t know what that means, here is a very good primer. This blog is going to be dealing with anti-oppression issues a lot, and discussing these issues is hard enough without derailment by privileged arguments we’ve heard a gazillion times before. So please, try not to let your privilege blind you to what the discussions here are really about. (And by the way, if you see others on this blog–including me–using cluelessly privileged arguments, do feel free to call them on it.)
5. Don’t comment solely to advertise.
It’s fine to post a link to your blog, if it’s directly relevant to the post (e.g., “I wrote an article on this topic on my blog”), and the same applies to trackbacks. These are allowed because they could potentially add to the discussion. A comment which doesn’t add to the discussion, and is intended solely to advertise, will be deleted. (Open threads, if there ever are any, will be an exception to this rule; feel free to promote your blog/site/whatever all you want in those.)
More rules will be added if/when they become necessary.
You will need to register to comment. When registering, you will need to provide your e-mail address; this helps me weed out spam. I will not give your address to anyone, nor will I use it to send unsolicited mail.
That’s it for now. Welcome, and happy commenting!