Comments policy

As I mentioned recently I’ve been increasingly aware that I need a comments policy, now that I’m (occasionally) blogging. My blog posts and other updates do generally accept comments, but I’ve no intention of allowing the site to become yet another online repository for conspiracy, nonsensical argument, personal insults, or just general bad manners. If that’s your style, you already have vast territory of the net to play in. So here are the rules I’ll be using:

1. All comments are moderated. This will mean a short delay before your comment appears – a long delay probably just means I’m doing something else important like sleeping.
2. Feel free to challenge me or disagree with what I’ve written, but do so with a proper argument. If you’re just being shallow, offensive or generally arsey, do it somewhere else.
3. It’s OK to still disagree after a discussion – please don’t keep posting the same argument over and over again once the point has been made and replied to. If a debate develops then it may live. If it stagnates, I will simply kill it off.
4. Be constructive. Try to respect other views. Niceness isn’t a dirty word.
5. Don’t make allegations against other people who aren’t here to defend themselves.
6. At the end of the day it’s my ball and we’re in my yard. :-)