Policies


Dec 22

This blog is for discussion of the books that make up Paksenarrion’s World and the background research that goes into them. See About Paksworld for more information.

At present, readers can comment without registration. That may change at any time if comments become a problem.

The first comment from any source does not appear on the site until  it’s been approved. Most pending comments will be cleared within 48 hours, holidays excepted. (Moderator has a life, quite full.)

Comments that look like spam will be reported as spam. Future comments from that source will be assumed spam and sent to the spam bucket.

Comments that contain inappropriate titles, topics, or language will be deleted without notice. If a first comment is deleted, the next from that source will also go to moderation before appearing on the site.

Titles: Comments don’t need titles; if used, titles should not look like spam–sex, money, politics and nonspecific greetings (“Hi”) lend a spam-like look and may get your coment deleted or reported as spam. If you want to use a title, make it appropriate to the topic-range of this blog.

Topics: Since topic drift is a constant of the ‘net-verse, moderator may let a conversation drift in hopes that it will drift back, usually with a reminder that this blog has a narrower channel than others, but eventually (and sooner in some cases) off-topic posts will be deleted. It’s non-negotiable.  NOTE:  speculation on the future of these characters, cultures, etc., and on relationships not sustained by the books, is not appropriate here.   Fanfic and fanfic type discussion  is not appropriate here.   (Edited 1/15/2010)

Language: Verbal abuse and profanity are inappropriate here. Disagreement is OK; abuse and harrassment are not. Asterisks, exclamation points, and other typography can substitute for profanity when the unabridged dictionary isn’t enough (it usually is….)

Copyright:  It’s not just an old-fashioned word, it’s the law. And it’s a law that matters. So don’t post copyrighted work here without permission (except for brief quotes in the course of a discussion) and cite the source for anything you do quote.   Note that comments are copyrighted: this includes those of the blog-owner and those visiting.   This includes prose and verse.    Don’t post (on or off this blog) anything you find here without explicit permission of its writer, whether it’s the blog-owner’s or someone else’s.   If you feel your copyright here has been violated, contact the blog-owner.

Keeping the Blog  Sane and Healthy:  The intent is to have a congenial conversational space to chat about the books…but we all know that’s hard to maintain on the internet.   The community has grown, and I hope will continue to grow, but that means that we have and will have people from different backgrounds, in different countries, in different occupations, who have never met face to face.  The potential for misunderstandings is high.  It is difficult to tell, online, whether the person you’re sparring with is serious or playful.  It is difficult to tell, online, where someone else’s hot buttons are, and what may be found intolerable while seeming (to the sender) to be innocent in intent.

Therefore it is necessary for all participants to be as clear as possible in communicating, including clear signals of things like playfulness,  intent, asking and granting or denying permissions for something, etc.   Try to avoid obliqueness and hidden meanings.  At the same time, all participants need to be aware that even so they may be misunderstood–and may be misunderstanding someone else’s motives.    Try to consider miscommunication as a possibility before assuming rudeness or intentional bad motives.  Asking for clarification–or giving it–in a non-confrontational way often works in these alien-contact situations.    (Nonetheless, if the blog-owner decides someone is intentionally causing trouble…that’s it. )

Commenting on older posts: Comments on older posts (often much older) produce the most spam and unacceptable comments.    This is true of all three blogs and LiveJournal.    Giving each individual consideration takes up time I don’t have.   Also,  in these embedded WordPress blogs I don’ t have an option of autodeleting comments on posts older than X.   I don’t see comments on older posts (if that commenter has graduated from moderation) unless I look at comments as admin.  So as of today (10/31/2013)  I’ve decided to automatically disapprove comments on posts older than six months.

(Reconsidered 6/20/2016, but unchanged.)