Hey there, it is time for yet one more refresher at the wonderful world of Engadget comments. After the break you will find our “human’s guide” to commenting, a kind of care and feeding guide on your Disqus account. If you have been here for awhile (hello, you) it would be mighty familiar but, because the flow of the commenters has hugely increased lately, we’ll be more strict for awhile, deleting any comments we deem to be trollin’ or hatin’ and banning repeat offenders. We do not like banning people, and we realize that haters do ought to hate, but we adore encouraging active and open debate down there. This can be the easiest way for us to do this.
Read on for some guidelines to remember.
Commenting on Engadget: a human’s guide
Regularly: The Engadget comments section is a spot for our readers to have interaction in discussion in regards to the posts — it’s really that straightforward. We encourage that discussion, and we’ll be the primary to confess that a lot of times our readers offer insights that lead us to update our posts, or direct us to thoroughly new angles and stories. We like that, and we adore our readers. We seriously do.
Some basic ideas on commenting here. We expect that comments must always be on topic. We encourage and welcome debate, notwithstanding it’s fervent, because we all know how much you care about these things — we care about it, too! However, your comments must be reasonably polite and wherever possible, lighthearted. Making personal attacks against other commenters, publications, or our own editors seriously degrades the community and quality of the discussion, and it won’t be tolerated.
While we’re fine with disagreements, we aren’t that crazy about being the battleground for epic fanboy wars. We’d like you to discuss, but if that discuss devolves into name calling and / or cyclical fanaticism (especially when you’ve moved way off topic), it isn’t an excellent use of anyone’s brainpower. Also, if you’ve come to Engadget for the specific purpose of whipping people right into a frenzy (or whipping yourself right into a frenzy), don’t expect to adhere around very long. It is simple to identify the folk who need to have a healthy debate and the people who just would like to troll. Seriously, Apple, Android, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Dell, etc. fanboys — please just depart unless you’ve something intelligent and reasonable to bring to the table.
On that note, we encourage our readers and commenters to arrive out to us personally and report other commenters who appear to be acting inhuman… or inhumane. Together, we believe we will be able to improve the standard of comments at the site. We’re acquainted with the undeniable fact that any system like ours may well be gamed — and we’re familiar with the truth that people actually do such things as make multiple profiles and argue with themselves just to cause problems. Just take note we’ll delete and ban you for that, too!
Comment deletion: There are plenty of reasons your comment could be deleted, but listed below are many of the most typical ones. Spamming of any type, be it human or robot-generated, is usually deleted. In case you are attempting to sell something in comments, you are a spammer. Trolling is likewise unacceptable — we recognize that lots of you trolls don’t even realize that you are trolls, but believe us — you’re. We’ll delete your comments if we feel they’re disruptive or annoying. We also delete comments which are racist, sexist, overly obscene, or offensive by any means. We delete comments which might be personal attacks — whether directed at an editor or another commenter. Finally, we reserve the correct to delete any comment at our discretion (please see below).
Banning: In case you create a history of trolling or other offensive behavior, or you’re simply a complete jerk, we’ll just ban your account. That suggests that your username, email, Twitter name, Facebook account, OpenID login, and potentially IP address may be barred from our system, and you will now not have the ability to comment.
You deleted my comment. Isn’t that censorship? No. Engadget, besides its parent company AOL, allows comments so one can further the discussion, engage our readers, and to let interested parties rejoice (and perhaps learn something)! Engadget’s commenting sections aren’t open forums where you could say whatever you please, and commenting on Engadget isn’t a right of law passed right down to you within the Constitution. Engadget is a news site and a business. The editorial staff doesn’t delete comments without good reason, but deletions are always on the discretion of the editors. There are millions of active commenters on Engadget, and we strive to maintain the comment sections a fun, engaging experience for all of its readers.
There is a comment that’s offensive to me. What am i able to do about it? There is a “report” button on all comments on the way to alert our staff that the comment was flagged. We do take a look at reported comments, and delete where we deem appropriate. Take into account, however, that we all know who’s reporting what comments, so think before you report — you do not want to be on our watchlist for reporting a comment for no reason in any respect, because that does not help anybody, does it?
Meet the mods: None of this could be possible without our crew of hard working mods. The team includes Lord Vader, d0mth0ma5, Mike10010100, techee44, fishkid13, Allegrotechie, itakafu, LucarioWuff, echO_W, sooper_engadget12, ollieford, devron, Hectix, masterofrandom, CommunistJack, girishp, Ferrara101, Tubamajuba, JeffB2006, SciencePro, and jinlee — the people with “Mod” by their name. They’re tasked with reading during the comments and taking action — including deleting and, if needed, banning — when necessarily. They’re mostly really nice, but will open up a can of moderation on you, if need be.
We realize that we’re ultimately answerable for the tone of comments here, and we’re doing our greatest to be more vigilant about watching out for problems. We like Engadget, and we take full responsibility for its quality. We also love our readers, and wish to make it a secure, enjoyable place for all who like to participate. But, sometimes lets use a hand.
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