Commenting Guidelnes

I derive my guidelines from the philosophy of the 1st Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This basically lets the comment section resemble a Wild West in terms of speech. There is no "speech code" or "safe place" here. Though this is "my house" the comment section is yours (for the most part). I will write posts about topics that I feel that are important or worthy of discussion. The discussion part is left up to you, the reader.

There is single caveat:

I will only delete comments if they fall under this label: spam.

Spam is defined as material which is non-related towards the content of a given post. Usually spam comes ftom spammers aka spambots, so if you don't fall into that group I'd imagine it be very hard to not talk about the subject at hand. With that said, if I talk about unicorns and you then talk about hamburgers - out of nowhere, that's spam. It'll be deleted. This is the only intrusive action I will take. You can say how much you hate unicorns and how you think unicorns with blue stripes should be led to an ally to be raped, beaten and then later hanged by its hoofs and I'll still let it stand. I won't delete it.

In other words stay on topic.

This is the rail which I hope you hold on to. It's the only "shirt, pants and footwear" standard that I ask of you.

DELETION OF COMMENTS 

Since this blog is on the Blogger server, and not paid, the only form of user and comment control I have is to either make this blog private, which I don't want since I believe it's good that anyone can stumble on my blog and therefore read my thoughts, or to individually delete comments that do not add to the topic or discussion where such users will categorized as trolls. Banning is not a user privilege I have due using a free hosting site. 

Trolls are defined as posters whose comments do not add to the discussion in some way. I have a good feeling when a poster is being a troll. I also have a high tolerance for trolls, so if you keep it up you might relegate your comment to the trash bin. Consider this my form of immigration control. Your comment will be deleted

I do not mind contrarian views: views that counter my own thoughts, views that might support what is posted and might offend the opposition, views that might be deemed sacrilegious to certain demographics etc. Offer your thoughts, views and perspectives. Make sure to cite your sources when applicable. It'll help in the discussion.

I'll write what's on my mind. You'll write what's on your mind.

With that said, keep your clothes on and keep the cussing to a minimum.