New York City activist

Comment policy

Rules for comments:

  1. Please post all comments after posts to which they are relevant, not necessarily the most recent post. If your comment is not directly in reply to a post, please try to find the most relevant post using the “Categories” list on the sidebar and the lists in note A, below this list of rules. (Some topics, furthermore, are strictly limited to posts in certain categories, as detailed in note A.) The “recent comments” list in the sidebar is there to enable readers to find all recent comments, on older posts as well as recent ones.
  2. No personal insults against other commenters, or against other people likely to be reading this blog. (See notes B and C, below this list of rules.) All comments should be civil and rational. Civility includes assuming, unless you can prove otherwise, that all other commenters (and all other people protected by this comment policy) are sincere.
  3. No advocacy of violence, especially in the name of any political movement that I’m associated with, or in the name of any religion or god.
  4. No hate speech (defined here as gratuitously offensive slurs or blanket denunciations of groups of people by race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc.) and no links to hate sites.
  5. No dismissal/denial/belittlement of the concerns of either side in the Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict. (See note D, below this list of rules.)
  6. No embedded videos, and no links to non-downloadable streaming videos or streaming audio. (Links to downloadable audio FILES and to VERY short, downloadable video FILES are allowed.) Remember, not everyone has high-speed access.
  7. No comments whose main purpose is to promote a website or blog. (It’s fine to include links directly relevant to specific points you are making, with exceptions as noted above..)
  8. Don’t flood this blog with a huge barrage of comments, overwhelming my capacity to respond in a timely fashion. As a general rule, three to five comments per person per day is usually fine, depending on how long they are. More comments occasionally is okay too, though not every day. If I need you to slow down, I’ll let you know.
  9. No content forbidden by the WordPress terms of service, and no links to such content.
  10. No content illegal in the United States, Canada, or Western Europe. (Alas, this includes discussion of some topics I think should be legal to discuss, but I’m playing it safe in terms of keeping my account here on WordPress. So, if you wish to discuss a forbidden topic with me, you may invite me to some public forum which allows but is not devoted to the controversial topic in question, and which isn’t likely to be seen as a generally objectionable site to link to.)

Notes:

A) About rule #1: Comments on the following topics should be strictly limited to posts in the categories linked below, rather than sprinkled through comment threads elsewhere:

  • A priori objections by official-story defenders, including arguments from authority (when used in an a priori manner), the “someone would have talked” and “too many people” arguments (when used as a categorical dismissal of all inside-job or government complicity hypotheses, or as a categorical dismissal of all air-defense slowdown or WTC demolition hypotheses), and questions about possible motives for 9/11 as inside job. (Exception: A priori arguments from authority may also be discussed in posts in the epistemology category.)
  • No-planes theories
  • DEW / “Star wars” beam theories
  • General gripe thread – about the 9/11 Truth movement (the place to post general gripes not directly relevant to any specific post)
  • blog policy and comment policy (the place to complain about my comment policy or other blog policies, if you want ask me to modify them)

Relevant comments are especially invited in response to the following posts, and should be posted there rather than in response to less relevant posts:

For other topics, see the categories list on the side panel.

B) About rule #2: In the “no personal insults against other commenters” rule, note that the “other commenters” are all people posting comments here, including those I disagree with, e.g. commenters defending the official story of 9/11.

C) Also in rule #2: “Other people likely to be reading this blog” include members of New York 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. I’m a member of the first group and in frequent email contact with some members of the other two groups. Thus, any comments about members of any of these groups are likely to get pointed out to the people in question. That being the case, please keep criticisms of these people civil. (People protected by this policy include, among others: Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, Richard Gage, Jim Hoffman, and Victoria Ashley.) Substantive criticisms are certainly welcome, though.

“Other people likely to be reading this blog” also include posters in the Truth Action forum, the Loose Change forum, and, on the other side of the fence, the JREF forum.

D) This isn’t a blog about the Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict, but, if and when this topic does come up, please keep in mind that great injustices have been committed against one group of people in the name of another group of people who, historically, have also suffered great injustices, over many centuries, and who are terrified of the prospect of similar injustices occurring against themselves in the future. Any real solution will need to address the concerns of both sides. Dismissal, denial, or belittlement of the concerns of either side is insenstive and can easily be seen as bigoted. It is okay to dispute specific allegations about specific goings-on in the Middle East, but don’t dismiss or belittle the overall concerns of either side.

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