Contents Policy

Contents Policy



I'm going to spend a lot of effort to keep this site as civil as possible. While the use of profanity is not going to be banned outright, it will be heavily scrutinized and discouraged. In either posts or comments, the challenge will be to speak to the issues of the argument and debate, not to the personalities. Simply because something is not profane does not mean it will not be deleted, either, if a post or comment fails on this point, or on other grounds of merit (faulty logic, abusive, etcetera). Think of the site as not quite family safe, but where it fails to achieve family safeness I hope you will agree that the lapse will be compensated for by the content.



(I'll admit I love a good Cluebatting, and am considering a category for it, where less restrictive policies apply, but am concerned it may sabotage the ability of the site as a whole to keep the debate civil. It is an unfortunate fact that these things do tend to spill over, and while a good Cluebatting is a joy to read, a poor one is pathetic, and they all tend to lower the level of mutual respect. I also am painfully aware certain people cannot be dealt with except by wielding a Plutonium Plated Nuclear Cluebat of Doom. My contention is this should still be the last resort, rather than the first.)



To encourage keeping the debate as issue oriented as possible, anonymity is going to be treated as somewhere in the spectrum from Officially Discouraged to Officially Frowned Upon to Officially Banned, with the emphasis tending towards the more severe end of the spectrum. Being anonymous is not being accountable for what you say and do. If I say something that's mistaken, misleading, or just a flat out lie, my credibility and reputation should suffer appropriately, and if you want to share my stage, you've got to live by my rules. The only beneficial uses of anonymity that I have observed in my time on this planet thus far is the ability to call someone else's attention to a situation, which that entity then investigates and stakes their own public credibility and reputation upon reporting. Even in mathematics or the hard sciences, unless your audience has the individual ability to evaluate the argument on its own merits (Something only a small portion of the populace possesses at the higher ranges), the debate usually comes down to credibility, and credibility proceeds from reputation. Anonymous has none.



To start with, I'm going to limit comments to 2048 characters - 2k. I may adjust this up or down as time does by, but the idea is that if something is longer than that, it probably deserves a post of its own. Send it to me via email. Credit will be given, if used.



I'm going to try to keep individual expert essays to a length most people can read in a break at work. If you want to submit one (or many), keep it to a manageable length, and aimed at a general audience of high school graduates. The point is not to bring the audience up to a professional level of competence, but to bring them to a point where they are educated consumers with a high probabilty of getting the best available bargain. In some cases, even a very narrow topic will require longer treatment, and that is fine, but the ambition is to make it comprehensible, accessible, and memorable, as well as accurate.