Comments policy

Comments Policy

Slugger is a politically diverse site. There is no presumed political consensus on any subject. We expect and indeed encourage disagreement on all subjects. We may even wade in to protect those who hold minority views from unreasonable majoritarian pressure to conform (see Bacon’s four idols).

We care about your contribution (even if we don’t agree with it), and we are keen to promote a smart community of comment. This is politics, so whilst things can and perhaps should become contentious we want to help curate an environment that also encourages new people from joining the conversation.

We may also delete and/or moderate comments, though we we will usually leave a note to this effect.

So try and stick to these rules:

  1. Stay on the subject. Try not to go off topic in a comment thread. If you do, we may delete or ban.
  2. Don’t make personal attacks on other commenters, Slugger’s bloggers or the subjects of posts on the site. By all means challenge the things people say or do, but don’t be personal and keep it civil.
  3. Play the ball and not the man or woman. Connect with the subject in hand, and avoid making the person you disagree with the object of your argument.
  4. Negative comments that bring nothing to the conservation maybe deleted. Examples include ‘This is crap’, ‘you are talking’ nonsense etc.
  5. Writers do not get paid and it can be a thankless task. We encourage users to let a writer know if you enjoyed their post.

If you break these rules:

  • we may delete your comments and maybe ban you from the site
  • in extreme cases, we may contact your Internet Service Provider or pass on your details to the appropriate legal authorities

We reserve the right to change these policies without notice.

You can read a more fulsome set of guidelines and FAQ that set out how these principles are applied.

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For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

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