Consider me swayed by the breeze of par­tic­i­pa­tory democracy.

I’m hardly expect­ing a flood, but I figure it better to lay out some guide­lines at the beginning:

1/ My gen­eral policy for now is that com­ments are wel­come as long as they aren’t dumb, obnox­ious, or offen­sive. They’re espe­cially wel­come if they’re not boring.

2/ I will be the sole and final arbiter of what counts as dumb, obnox­ious, and offen­sive. You get to decide what’s boring.

3/ I will not modify com­ments with­out the per­mis­sion of the comment’s author unless those mod­i­fi­ca­tions are clearly marked as my own…

4/ …but I may delete a com­ment at any time for any reason. That means that a com­ment may be deleted even if it doesn’t fall into the dumb and offen­sive clause of guide­line 1.

5/ A person who sub­mits many (i.e. more than two) dumb or offen­sive com­ments may be per­ma­nently blacklisted.

6/ I may shut down the com­ments on the site at any time for any reason. This may include past com­ments. If you leave a com­ment that you are espe­cially fond of, be sure to make a local copy for yourself.

7/ Pseudo- and anonymity will be tol­er­ated, but I encour­age you to use your own name. Using some­one else’s name is gen­er­ally a no-​no, but if you’re doing it to make some kind of point, I’ll prob­a­bly note the fact in an editor’s note to your comment.

8/ By post­ing a com­ment at dig­i­tal emu­nc­tion you grant Robert P. Baird a non-​exclusive and per­ma­nent right to pub­lish your com­ment on the site.

9/ These poli­cies may change at any time. For the latest ver­sion, click the link below the com­ment form on any single-​post page.