Comment Policy

We want everyone to feel at home posting comments. We expect you to treat others the way you want to be treated. Be respectful. That’s why we reserve the right to delete comments and ban users as needed to keep the comment threads here civil and substantive.

When commenting, be a model web citizen:

• Weigh in with smart, informed ideas that contribute further to the story.
• Give us useful, constructive criticism. Spot a typo or an error? Let us know, and we will correct it.
• Demonstrate and share the intelligence, wisdom, and humor.
• Don’t feed the trolls. Downvote comments instead.

Although we can’t be everywhere at once, here are some of the kinds of comments we’re going to do our best to curtail:

• Promoting your own brand, product, or blog.
• Impersonating authors or other commenters.
• Comments that make it clear you didn’t read the article.
• Comments that are completely out of left field. Sometimes discussions veer off a bit, but are still related to the original subject. That is fine. Hijacking the conversation to promote off-topic commentary is not.
• Threats — no matter how vague — against the author or other commenters. Things can get heated.
• Racism, sexism, homophobia, you get the drift. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.