Comments Policy

We stand up for our readers and ourselves by moderating disruptive commenters and unacceptable content. You can read some of our thoughts about the type of space Hoyden About Town is in this post from August 2008. We have implemented registration for commenters in order to combat spam. Registration is rescinded for the time being (until the next time the spammers get out of control).

Our Fine Print section goes into detail for incidents when a point needs to be clearly made to disruptive posters – it is NOT required reading for commentors of goodwill, although the curious are more than welcome to examine it.

The Hoydens’ primary rules:

* Be at least one of: feminist, friendly, amusing, or perspicacious. Two is even better!
* Our blog, our discretion.
* Playful shenanigans are encouraged, but obnoxious or vexatious shenanigans will be squelched.

Specifics:

• Registration requires a valid email address. Pseudonymous hotmail/gmail/yahoo etc addresses are fine, but it must be valid so that your registration can be confirmed and your user account enabled.

• We decline to publish unacceptable content.We get to define what constitutes unacceptable content.

Taboo words do not define unacceptable content. Meaning defines unacceptable content. Bigotry does. (Unacceptable content may include sexist, racist, classist, ableist, ageist, homophobic, and transphobic speech as well as a variety of other -isms and -phobias.)

Trolling and concern trolling are unacceptable. Concern trolls come across as insincere, manipulative, and condescending.

• Nobody is obliged to listen to you if you are being a jerk.

* Don’t threadjack, morph, sockpuppet, wank, threaten, or be repetitive and insipid. (Need a glossary?)
* Don’t dominate: allow space for other voices to be heard (i.e. avoid excessively frequent and/or long comments)

• Take moderation discussions to email.

• Violations of these acceptable content policies may be disemvowelled, mocked, edited, or summarily deleted.

  * While amusement value may atone for a multitude of minor sins, we expect those who transgress too far to have the grace to apologise.

Dissent

If you find yourself inspired to dash off a critical comment, there are a few things to do first:

1. Read the whole post, and the links.
2. Check your privilege. Could you be missing something? Is yours the only valid viewpoint here? Could your interlocutor have more experience with the matter at hand? Are you only here to dispense wisdom from your high horse?
3. Ask at least one (and preferably three) good-faith clarification questions, and listen to the answers before unleashing your denunciation.
4. Don’t assume the bloggers are ignorant.
5. If it’s a feminist thread: are you adding anything new to the discussion? Could your argument be reduced to two, three, or more of the statements on one of the Bingo cards linked in our fine print section? If your answers are “no” and “yes” (be honest with yourself here), you might want to pull your head in and go back to Feminism 101.
6. Remember, just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

If after all that, you’re still sure you have a point to make, a criticism to raise? By all means come along and do it. We’re not perfect; we do make mistakes; we’re prepared to engage. On these terms.