“Comments” illustration © Miss Miah on Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons / CC BY-NC 2.0.

I welcome and encourage your comments on RebeccaHains.com. I strive to foster an atmosphere of respectful discourse, and I welcome debate and disagreement. In the face of conflicting viewpoints, I ask all commenters to please remain civil.

Please note that this blog is an uncompensated labor of love. I like to respond to comments addressing me personally—particularly those made in good faith (ie, with respect and sincerity, not calculated to goad or insult others). Unfortunately, personal responses are not always an option, due to personal limitations on my time.

Although I am not responsible for the comments other people make on this blog, I reserve the right to edit or delete any comment submitted to this blog without notice. Per the policy outlined below, I will exercise my right to moderate and edit comments I deem offensive, unsuited to the subject matter of this site, or counterproductive.

1. Comments containing personal attacks and/or insults, personal remarks I deem inappropriate, remarks I deem to be deliberate derailments that are not germane to the conversation, and/or unnecessary profanity will be deleted upon sight.

2. Those who post comments of the nature described above will be added to a “moderated” list, meaning that their comments will only post to the site after review. I cannot guarantee that queued comments will ever be reviewed or posted, so I would encourage you to avoid this moderation purgatory queue if at all possible.

3. Those who flood comments threads with multiple combative comments intended to dominate the conversation will be added to the “moderated” list, and their comments will be edited or deleted.

4. Commenters who engage in any conduct that suggests trolling will be banned outright from commenting on this site. Posts made by those on the “banned” list are filtered directly to trash without review.

• Trolling behavior includes vitriolic ad hominem attacks and threats.
• Trolling behavior also includes making multiple demands (typically controlling or abusive in nature) insisting that Rebecca Hains or other commenters reply to specific questions or comments.

5. If a commenter who has been added to the “moderated” list persists in repeatedly violating the blog’s comments policy, this constitutes trolling behavior and will not be tolerated. Such commenters will be moved from the “banned” list.

6. If a commenter who has been added to the moderated posts attacks, baits, or goads the moderators, he or she will be placed on the “banned” list.

7. Spam is also prohibited from this blog’s comments. I consider as spam any posts intended only to provide a link to an unrelated promotional site. Spam will be immediately deleted and the commenter will be banned from commenting.

8. During times of heavy traffic, I reserve the right to make all posts moderated (that is, subject to posting only after review by a moderator).

9. I reserve the right to close comments on any post at any time.

10. This comment policy is subject to change at any time without notice.

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Related reading: 

• “Free speech” comic on xkcd
• “An idiot’s guide to free speech” on Jezebel
• “Let me try to clear something up” by George Takai
• “What exactly is freedom of speech, and how does it apply to the internet?” on Lifehacker