Content Policy

While we will try to maintain a forum that is as open as possible to the exchange and discussion of ideas, we do have a few guidelines that we request you adhere to. Please remember that this site is being offered at a fairly substantial personal expense, and that it has but one administrator/web master/owner right now. With that in mind, we reserve the right to edit, move or remove any material posted on this site for any reason without necessarily providing an explanation. We also reserve the right to approve, deny or revoke memberships as we see fit, also without explanation. For the most part, we will try not to exercise these rights, and if we do, we will try to provide a reasonable explanation. Many of the things that would call for the red pen or boot someone from the site are detailed in the list below. Also check the Privacy Policy for more information.

The Rules

1. Spam will not be tolerated. You are welcome to link to other sites, including your own, provided a) the link has something to do with the issue at hand and b) you place the link in context. Messages such as "Check this out!" will be deleted, and the poster will be placed on the spammer watchlist. Repeat offenses will lead very quickly to membership termination.
2. Pornography won't even get you a warning. Posting pornographic material or links thereto is grounds for immediate membership revocation. This includes photographs, videos and text. If you're not sure whether something qualifies as pornography, run it by an administrator first (although the fact that you're uncertain about it raises the question of why you want to post it in the first place).
3. Profanity will usually be deleted or reworded, so think very carefully before using it. Profanity very rarely serves to enforce a point when written down---usually, it just reflects poorly on the author's intelligence. While occasions to use strong language do sometimes arise, they tend to be rare, and even more so when the medium entails the written word.
4. "Professional courtesy" applies to everyone. Be courteous to other members, and try to be professional in your own postings. How well you present yourself is doubly important on the Internet, as people have only your words with which to judge you. We'd also like this site to be accessible in schools, and their content filters tend to frown on things like curses.
5. Grammar, punctuation and syntax are your friends. The administrator personally refuses to read Email that isn't written to be legible. Constructs such as sentences and words are not optional parts of the English language, and most people h8 trying 2 d-cifer txt. Remember that everyone else is probably just as busy as you, so why should they be expected to take the time to decode your writing?
6. Think before you act. Think twice before you speak. In other words, please make sure that your words are well thought-out and chosen carefully, and that you have researched an issue sufficiently before writing about it. Your opinion is welcome, of course, but try to distinguish it from the facts you present. Also, never forget that you might very well be wrong. It happens more often than you think.

Gender in Pronouns

For a while, we have been using what Brian thought was a clever computer programming-inspired construct to avoid gender bias in pronouns. Rather than he or she, he would use (s)he, and rather than his or her, h(er|is). The horizontal bar, "|", commonly operates in regular expressions as an "or" term Recently, Brian has found that the degree of tediousness that it introduces into the writing process is surpassed only by the extent to which it completely disrupts the flow of the text while reading. Switching between male and female pronouns regularly was also not a viable option, as it requires a fairly reliable short-term memory. So, in an effort to make his writing here less painful for you and me, Brian has decided to use the feminine form for neuter third-person pronouns. His rationale is that almost all of the classical and even contemporary prose uses the masculine form, so every time he uses the feminine form, he's bringing the balance one notch closer to even. Other authors are of course welcome to adopt whatever standards they prefer.