If it weren’t for comments, my blog would bore me. I deeply appreciate the intelligent, civil, and spirited debates we have here and I’ll do what it takes to protect that. 99% of the commenters here do not need to read this page because they’re adults who know how to act on someone else’s property.

But there have to be rules for newbies and confused people, and they’re pretty simple. If you read these and break any of them, don’t cry about getting your shit deleted and yourself banned.

I own this site and am responsible for all content herein. If a comment violates any of the following rules, there’s not a damn thing wrong with me rectifying the situation.

1. Funny is the only acceptable excuse for straying from the perimeter of good taste. The further outside that line you go, the funnier it had damned well better be. Example: “We need to gang-rape the virgin spot of Mother Earth known as ANWR, and any caribou that get in the way.” A little bit over the line, and a little bit funny, so it passes.

2. No personal insults aimed at me or at any other commenter, UNLESS that commenter has just violated this rule and I haven’t had a chance to delete it yet. Example: “Rachel, you’re a disgusting little shit.” Feel free to tell that commenter he’s a butthole. Just keep in mind, your rebuttal may make no sense shortly thereafter because as soon as I see Butthole’s comment, I am going to delete it, and depending on how egregious Butthole’s comment was, I might delete your reference to it as well.

3. Trolls will be deleted and banned. Trolling is defined as making comments intended to induce an angry response or disrupt the flow of discussion. Trolls know when they’re trolling and so do I. Example: “I don’t care about your family member in a coma, you’re a bigot for saying there are no atheists in foxholes.” Sorry, that’s not discussion, it’s trolling.

4. Extremely long, rambling, or off-topic comments will be edited down to an acceptable size if not deleted outright. This includes pasting entire news articles or sharing your entire life’s philosophy about anything. I am paying for the bandwidth here; if you have THAT much to say, you need to get your own blog and say it there.

5. This blog is my property. It is not a news site, a public square, or your own personal punchbowl to take a piss in. It is not my obligation or my duty IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER to protect your First Amendment rights, because they don’t apply here. Look at it this way: this blog is a restaurant that is open to the public. Since comments are open, you are free to walk in. But since it is still PRIVATE PROPERTY THAT I OWN, I am equally as free to refuse service to you and kick your ass out if you behave in a way that I don’t like. Do you expect to be able to walk into a pizza joint and wipe shit on the walls, without the owner kicking you out and cleaning your shit off the walls? I didn’t think so.

6. Do not comment as “Anonymous.” You can still BE anonymous, but at least make up a fake name; otherwise, we would have ten different people posting as “Anonymous,” which makes it impossible to carry on a discussion with rebuttals and responses. Any comments using the name “Anonymous” that I actually choose to publish, I’ll edit it to give you a name. And you might not like it.

7. If you are so stupid and so bored in your mom’s basement that you simply cannot RESIST leaving a harassing, hateful, threatening, or otherwise offensive comment, do yourself a favor and keep in mind that every comment left on this blog records your IP address. Which I can use to determine your ISP, which I can then use to lodge a harassment complaint and you just might get your internet access canceled. Anything even remotely resembling a physical threat will compel me to report you, your email address, and your IP address to the police.

8. Any comment left by someone who has never commented here or by someone who is using an email address that hasn’t been used before will automatically go to the moderation queue. Even comments left by regular, long-time commenters get snagged by the moderation filter sometimes. There is no subjective human presence behind this phenomenon; it is a plug-in. THUS, DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Do not send me an email 10 seconds after seeing your comment go to moderation, to ask me why I moderated you. I did not moderate you. The filter did, and it has no emotions or motives.

I don’t sit in front of my computer 24 hours a day, and thus sometimes it takes many hours for me to approve the moderated comments. Don’t get upset about this because doing so will only prove that you take this blog more seriously than I do.

Rarely, a comment that goes to moderation will NOT be approved and will never see the light of day on my bandwidth. The reasons for this have already been covered above; maybe you violated a rule. Or, maybe I just didn’t like the way you said what you said. Maybe you had a decent point somewhere in there but you were also a dick about it, so no approval for you. I have no obligation to justify this, either, so don’t ask for it.