So while we’ve only just started this blog, we’ve already received a few comments that required moderation. Just so people are clear, we will be deleting any comments that fit the following parameters, based on our experiences from commenting on other media-analysis-centered corners of the Internet:
- Blatant spam or other self-promotion, especially when completely unrelated to the post at-hand. (Promoting your own blog’s take on a subject is fine, promoting where to buy the best knock-off purses is not.)
- Phobic content, including sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and so on. This includes anything along the lines of “see, feminists/skeletons have nothing good to say ever!” Also, any rape jokes/apologism or other forms of victim-blaming.
- Off-topic derailments and randomness. “Derailing” here includes “fandom gatekeeping” – attempts to silence criticism of an adaptation with something along the lines of “well, you can’t truly understand it until you’ve experienced the original books/comics/games/whatever.” Address the post on its own merits; don’t attempt to move the goalposts.
- Personal attacks, harassment, etc. toward either the OP or other commenters.
- Anything that shows a general hostility to any media criticism and analysis, as opposed to simply engaging with the claims of a particular post. This includes “but why can’t you enjoy it for what it is? why do you have to think about it?” types of comments (see Moff’s Law), and anything suggesting that we don’t have a right to comment on a piece of media until we can submit proof that we’ve created something similar ourselves. The fact is, if you don’t like analyzing and criticizing media, this is just not the blog for you.
- Any comment that can be summed up as “NOT ALL [fandom/Internet community/anything other than a societally marginalized group].” This includes “NOT ALL BRONIES”, “NOT ALL 4CHANNERS”, etc.
- Anything from someone who’s been previously IP-banned.
What falls here is up to the blog contributors’ individual discretions. We will be reasonable about this – for example, we don’t consider “crazy” or “stupid” to be inherently ableist terms – but we do reserve the right to decide all this for ourselves on a case-by-case basis.
Comments we do like, however!
- Hearty debate about the topic at-hand, including respectful disagreement both with the original post and other commenters.
- Expanding on the ideas of the post, telling us where we missed something. This includes possibly relating it to larger, broader issues.
- Links to other people’s takes on the subject elsewhere on the Internet.
- Discussing other media with the same pluses or minuses.
- ANY good, on-topic discussion!
With all that said, go forth and comment! Please note that comments will all be directed originally to the moderation queue, but if they fit the above parameters I will post them immediately.
