A reminder about our comment policy, which I would hope more or less reflects how most of you would govern yourselves in your offline lives.
1. We reserve the right to edit or delete comments, and to ban commenters, at our discretion. Comments must be relevant and civil — and, especially, free of name-calling.
We think of comment threads like dinner parties at our homes. If you make the party unpleasant for us or for others, we’d rather you went elsewhere.
We’re happy to see a wide range of viewpoints, but we want all of them to be expressed as politely as possible. And politeness is good for you as well as for everyone else on the site — you will be a much more effective advocate for your own viewpoint if you express yourself politely.
2. We realize that such a comment policy can never be evenly enforced, because we can’t possibly monitor every comment equally well. Hundreds of comments are posted every day here, and we don’t read them all. Those we read, we read with different degrees of attention, and in different moods. We try to be fair, but we make no promises.
3. And remember, it’s a big Internet. Your life, liberty, property, livelihood, and education don’t depend on your being able to comment here. If you think we were mistaken in removing your post (or in removing you) — or if you prefer a more free-for-all approach — there are surely plenty of ways you can still get your views out.