Policy • Watts Up With That?

Welcome to my home on the Internet. Everyone who visits here is welcome to post, but please treat your visit like you would a visit to a private home or office. Most people wouldn’t be rude, loud, or insulting in somebody’s home or office, I ask for the same level of civility and courtesy here.

I try to give everyone a fair shake on this blog, and to be flexible as needed. I never thought I’d need to have a blog policy, but with the hit counter now exceeding 300k 1 3 5 million per month, I have to setup some basic policy structure by which to manage the flow. That being said I do have a few rules that I will enforce to keep the dialog respectful and stimulating:

Postings are moderated, I and the volunteer moderators try to keep up, but on occasion there may be delays of a few hours. There are other volunteer moderators, but even so there may be some overnight gaps.
No vulgarities of any kind, nor links to sites that promote such. Particularly porn or gaming sites.
No links to commercial websites that are not relevant to the discussion.
Respect is given to those with manners, those without manners that insult others or begin starting flame wars may find their posts deleted.
Publishing comments in SHOUTING MODE (all caps) is not acceptable.
Some off topic comments may get deleted, don’t take it personally, it happens. Commenters that routinely lead threads astray in areas that are not relevant or are of personal interest only to them may find these posts deleted.
A spam filter is employed; some posts may disappear into it based on words, phrases, and/or links. If you feel you have been accidentally blocked, try posting a single one or two sentence comment with the word “moderators” in it and they’ll see it and take appropriate action.
Trolls, flame-bait, personal attacks, thread-jacking, sockpuppetry, name-calling such as “denialist,” “denier,” and other detritus that add nothing to further the discussion may get deleted; also posts repeatedly linking to a particular blog, or attempting to dominate a thread by excessive postings may get deleted. Take that personally if you wish, but all deletions/snips are final. Grousing about it won’t help since deleted posts can’t be recovered. Rather than trying to deal with each comment, bulk moderation may be employed to save time.
I have several projects I work on plus a business to run, if moderation takes too much time and becomes redundant, I may opt to remove posts and/or shut down a thread.
Internet phantoms who have cryptic handles, no name, and no real email address get no respect here. If you think your opinion or idea is important, elevate your status by being open and honest. People that use their real name get more respect than phantoms with handles. I encourage open discussion by people that stand behind their words.
Comments coming from proxy servers (to create fake identities) will be deleted.
Anonymity is not guaranteed on this blog. Posters that use a government or publicly funded IP address that assume false identities for the purpose of hiding their source of opinion while on the taxpayers dime get preferential treatment for full disclosure, ditto for people that make threats.
A real working email address that you own (as a commenter) is required, so that I may contact you if needed. False or misleading email addresses may earn banishment. Changing handles and/or changing email addresses to get around this will also earn the same fate.
You are responsible for your own words.
Stories that have been posted may get edited in the first hour after they first appear. Sometimes errors or mistakes (particularly in formatting) aren’t seen until the post is published. If something doesn’t look right and the post is brand-new, try refreshing in a few minutes. Of course, after an hour if something is still wrong, don’t hesitate to leave a comment to point it out.
The idea of the blog is to learn, discuss, and enjoy the interaction. Please try to keep that in mind when making comments.
Certain topics are not welcome for publication here and comments concerning them will be deleted. This includes topics on religion, discussions of barycentrism, astrology, aliens, bigfoot, chemtrails, 911 Truthers, Obama’s Birth Certificate, HAARP, UFO’s, Electric Universe, mysticism, moon landing denial, flat Earth theory, and other topics not directly related to the thread or the primary mission of the website.
For the same reasons as the absurd topics listed above, references to the “Slaying the Sky Dragon” Book and subsequent group “Principia Scientific” which have the misguided idea that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist, and have elevated that idea into active zealotry, WUWT is a “Slayer Free Zone”. There are other blogs which will discuss this topic, take that commentary there.
A Tips & Notes section exists for bringing items of interest to attention. Use that instead of leaving off-topic notices on threads. See the top menu bar.
Guest authors and moderators are expected to adhere to this policy
Like any establishment, we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone
I reserve the right to modify the policy as needed, including on an event basis.