In response to some really ugly threads the past couple of weeks, we’ve decided to institute our first (brief) comment policy, which you can read here.

With startlingly few exceptions, our commenters all bring something intelligent to say and tend to do it with class and erudition.  Even our “trolls” like to give us a bit of a hard time, but at the same time offer smart critiques.

That’s not something you can say about, for instance, Horse’s Ass, where the quality of the posts is not at all matched by what goes on in the threads.  We’d like to keep the tone of our threads the way it’s been historically.

14 Replies to “Comment Policy”

  1. I want to add that we love comments, and we like you, so please don’t make us delete your comments. And trust me, you’ll know if your comment is likely to be deleted.

  3. Good idea but too bad you have to do this. The tenor of internet dialogue tends to suck and is so loud that sometimes it’s too easy to lose the meat amongst the rot. I consider places like STB and HugeAssCity (er, Seattle Planning Blog) to be important daily sources of info about my city, that I want to follow closely. I can’t even read places like HA or the SLOG because of the noise.

  4. Oh and BTW, since you’re giving props to USSMariner, I might point out that those guys institute their policy with no quarter held and it makes for a much more readable forum.

    1. Sam,
      Any blog is going to mostly attract people in favor of whatever the focus of the blog is for the most part.

      While most blogs welcome those with another viewpoint who want to discuss issues civilly far too few people these days are able to disagree without being disagreeable which leads to policies like this.

      The issue isn’t a desire to increase groupthink but to discourage those who are attempting to be disruptive.

      I don’t think asking commenters not to post spam, to stay on topic, and not to engage in personal attacks is unreasonable.

  6. Thanks for doing this. While I enjoy wading into the fray over at Horsesass from time to time I’d hate to see the threads here degenerate to that level.

    I feel the problem has been limited to a small handful of people who mostly contribute to the discussion but have a disturbing tendency to engage in personal attacks or thread jacking.

  9. What keeps this blog civil for now is that almost all of the commenters want to see transit expanded in the area. We may differ on where to put the dollars and even how to fund it and can argue till the end of time about zoning rules,growth management,and cities vs suburbs; but most of us aren’t coming from completely opposite ends of the spectrum such as at Horse’s Ass.

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