Comments: play nicely now

In a nutshell, we're not going to censor opinions, but we are also going to make sure that they're not written in a language that may offend or insult.

Comments. Ah, yes. Comments. We love them. What better way to interact with RedShark and with the authors of our articles. Seriously, we enjoy getting comments, whether they agree with us or not. So please keep them coming, and keep us on our toes.

But, please be nice. Even if you hated the article, or you've spotted the most outrageous error, you can still be polite about it. There's no reason not to: you can still get your point across.

We don't censor opinions unless they're written in language that's going to offend or insult (and of course we have to be the judge of that).

If we're not sure what you mean, then we'll write to you asking for clarification.

But if you're just plain rude, or if your aim is to insult our writers or other commenters, then you won't be published. We do not allow trolling.

Also, please don't be negative without justification. Exaggerated and (especially) unsubstantiated remarks like "All of [some company's] products are rubbish" will be rejected, as will "[some company] or [some person] is stupid." We absolutely don't allow personal attacks, and if you don't like the way a company has designed its products, it doesn't mean they're stupid. It just means you don't understand their reasoning, and it's okay to say that!

Since we started using Disqus as our commenting service, it's been a massive success. Our commenting volume has increased by a factor of five.

We want to keep the quality of the comments up, and to protect our authors and other readers from gratuitous insults.

So, just to re-iterate: if you have a point to make, please do make it, and it will be published as long as you do it nicely. RedShark is an open and free place to interact. The rules are there to keep it a safe and pleasant place to be - and NOT to restrict the freedom to comment.

(Please also note that if you submit a comment and it doesn't appear immediately it probably means that our moderators might be in another timezone and asleep!)

If anyone would like further clarification, please write to the Editor. And if you ever have any problems with the website itself, please contact the Webteam.

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