Comment Policy

• Why isn’t my comment showing?
  To maintain a civil atmosphere, the moderation team may read comments before they are displayed to other users. If this is the case, you may see your comment pending approval. Approval times can vary depending on the site-wide comment load, so please be patient – we will get to all comments as quickly as possible.

• Most likely this is because you have used a word or phrase that is tagged for moderation. If you use such a phrase (usually insulting words like fuck, idiot, shit, asshole, crap, etc.), your comment will go in to a moderation queue for approval. Additionally, if you quote an URL (web address) in your comment, it will also go in to the moderation queue. This doesn’t mean your comment won’t show up (unless it’s too rude or spam) – it just means that we need to approve it first.

• Every member of this community has the power and responsibility to help elevate the level of conversation and remove the trolls who would degrade it. On every comment, you can ‘Like’ or ‘Flag’ a comment for review by a moderator. Taking these simple actions helps bring great content to the top and removes bad content quickly.

• Can I use bold, italic, etc.?
  Yes. You can use a subset of standard HTML for your comments. NOTE: you can not use forum markup (this usually has square brackets, like [url] – this is not standard HTML). What you can use is:

<b>bold text</b>
<i>italic text</i>
<u>underline text</u>

• But please don’t overuse or misuse the markup.

• How long can a comment be?
  We don’t have a limit on the size of comments, but we do ask that you condense what you want to say in to as few lines as possible. If you have to explain something very detailed, you should find a website with your explanation and post a link to that instead (see question 4 for instructions on links). However PLEASE DO NOT EXAGGERATE with the linking. Two links per comment is enough.

• How do I post a link?
  You can either just post the link in to your comment and the site will automatically turn it in to a hyperlink for you, or if you want to add a title, you can do it like this:

<a href="http://PUT THE WEB ADDRESS HERE">PUT THE TITLE HERE</a>

• Can I use a signature?
  No. Do not put signatures at the end of your comments – we can see from the comment what your username is and we don’t allow readers to use the comments for advertising. Furthermore, links posted in comments are not indexed by Google or other search engines so you can’t improve your site rank by doing this.

• Can I carry on personal chats in the comments?
  No – this becomes very tedious for other readers. Please stay on the topic.

• Do I have to write in English?
  Yes. You absolutely must write in English. We will delete non-English comments as soon as I see them. The same goes for ‘text-message’ speech – we want everyone to understand the comments.

• How do I write a good comment?
  You write a good comment by not insulting others, by not using CAPS LOCK, by not using repetitive punctuation, and explain your opinion more detailed. Remember, the minute you insult a person in a debate, you lose.

• Can I discuss other topics in comments?
  No – you must stick to the topic – when comments go so far off the topic they cause people to lose interest and they add nothing to the discussion. Of primary importance is the fact that the comments are meant to enhance readers time on the site – not cause them to get bored with idle chit-chat.

• Can I use multiple nicknames?
  No please don’t. Represent yourself with one name and don’t delude the readers by commenting with several names. If we find any of those we’ll delete the comments or we’ll associate them with one name.

  Every person’s opinion is valuable and unique. Pretending to be someone else removes that unique value from you or from others. Don’t misrepresent yourself or others, spread mis-information, create multiple accounts or ‘AstroTurf’. If you do, you will make the community a less enjoyable and valuable place to be and will be removed when we see it.