In the interest of keeping the blog readable, enjoyable, and civilized, here are some guidelines to keep in mind when posting comments:

• Being Offensive – I reserve the right to remove any comments which I find offensive, inflammatory, or disrespectful. Differing opinions are welcome, but play nice, or don’t play at all. I am all for free speech, but the Mudflats is a benevolent dictatorship and I make the final call.

• Sharing an Article – If you see a great article you want to share, please copy and paste only a small part of the article, and then include a link. If you post the entire article in a comment, it may be copywright infringement…and that’s not good. Same goes for the other way around. If you want to share one of my posts, please include part of the post, and then link back to Mudflats.

• Staying On Topic – Please keep comments on topic. Off topic comments and conversations are welcomed and encouraged on an Open Thread (these stay active throughout the day even if other posts are put up), at the Mudflats Forum (link in sidebar) or on the I Heart Mudflats blog (also in sidebar).

• Links to Your Own Blog – Outright promotion and solicitation to promote traffic on your own blog is generally not considered good form.  It is known as “pimping your blog” and is frowned upon pretty much everywhere.  If you enter your url in the blank field as you make a comment, readers will be able to see that you have a blog, and visit your blog from that comment. If they’re curious, they’ll come.  You can also submit your blog to the blogroll at I Heart the Mudflats.

• Solicitation – It is never OK to solicit money for yourself, your own blog, or a cause or charity in the comments. If you have a great non-profit, or want to suggest that Mudflats do a story or assist in fundraising, please contact me via email. This will be a decision made by the editors of The Mudflats.

• Linking to Wingnut Blogs – There are many conservative blogs and other wingnutty websites out there who have differing opinions than those expressed here.  Try to refrain from providing links to them, enticing readers to go see what they’re doing, or encouraging flame wars.   All it does is drive up their traffic, and get administrators on both sides irritated.  Comments which contain the names of frequently read conservative blogs may be moderated for content regarding the above.

• It is never OK to engage in ad hominem attacks on other commenters, the moderation team or the community at large.  If you have a gripe, I’m all ears.  Email me at akmuckraker(at) yahoo(dot)com and we can hash it out.  If you post a comment, you’re griping to thousands of people which is generally disruptive and inflammatory.

Spam filter:

To learn a little more about the inner life and times of the spam filter, please read the FAQ page.

Trolls:

A troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional responseor to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

If anyone sees an obvious troll, please drop me an email, or post in the most recent thread. Remember to tell me where the troll is – name of post, and time of comment – so I can find and vanquish them quickly.

Engaging trolls in conversation generally pumps them up with all kinds of goofy brain chemicals that make them behave even worse, as they revel in stressing out the community. So, please  do not to feed the trolls. If they are ignored, they usually go away.  If you feed them (post in response to their post) it only makes the problem worse, and upsets the people you like.

If anyone does feed a troll, or respond to an inappropriate post, I will need to delete their responses to the troll as well as the troll itself.  This makes more of a clean up chore for me.  So please abide by the ‘no feeding trolls’ rule.

Anything you are unsure of?  Questions?   Email me at akmuckraker(at)yahoo(dot)com and put Comment Guidelines in the subject line.