Comments: The Crackdown

I’m sure you all knew this was coming. I enabled comments on Universe Today about 6 months ago, and it was great to have everyone’s feedback. But now people are abusing the system, being rude to each other and advertising their personal theories, so it’s time to crack down. I’m going to implement some new policies that should keep things cleaner. This is a shortened version, inspired by the powerful (but fair) rules over at the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum.

The writers and I will be deleting any posts that break the following rules:

• Be nice – Don’t abuse other readers, the writers, or the Universe in general. Don’t swear, make racist or sexist comments, etc. I think you know when you’re being rude. Stop it.
• Be brief – Don’t write a long rambling comment that’s longer than the original article.
• Don’t advertise – Don’t use the site to promote your product, service, or your own website. If you’d like to promote your stuff, buy advertising.
• Don’t promote your personal, alternative physics theories – This is the same as advertising. You’ve got an idea and you want the world to know about it, then start up your own website, and blog away, but don’t do it here.

I’m also going to make commenters register with the website shortly, so you have to create an account to be able to comment.