Comments Policy
These are some basic guidelines to achieving the noble goal of not having your comments deleted or edited. They are not complete: if I (Geoff, the administrator) feel that your comment is inappropriate, then I will likely act to make it less inappropriate. I’ll seek to correspond with you directly: I certainly don’t want to restrict your freedom to convey your opinion on an issue, I just don’t want it to mean that you are insulting others reading Amateur Theology.
The following is likely to see your comment deleted/edited:
- Aggressive profanity. I’m willing to let moderately bad words get through, as long as they’re not directed at a person. This might just result in your bad word being replaced with the word “Florist”.
- Personal attacks of any kind. Have a crack at people’s ideas - no worries. But there are to be no insults of any type, regardless of how mild you think they are. Just because you think someone’s wrong, doesn’t make them ignorant/abusive/going-to-hell, etc.
- Discriminatory comments in regards to nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, anything else. Gentle ribbing about being an American/Australian/English-person/French-person/Whatever-else person is fine, but as soon as it gets nasty, it’s right out.
- Really long comments. I understand that these are probably issues that you care deeply about. But in the interests of keeping the comments to being discussions rather than theses, you shouldn’t need any more than 5 paragraphs to make your point. Any longer than that, and you can post it on your own blog and link to it. (linking to interesting comments is encouraged) Or even better: send it to submissions@amateurtheology.org and we’ll post it up here.
Keep in mind, this should be a safe place for people to convey their opinions without needing to worry that they are going to be abused personally. I’ll have no hesitation in acting to protect that safe environment. And remember: we’re all chasing after the same God (unless you’re not, in which case - have fun anyway).
