Comments Policy

We welcome discussion and debate on Arctic Progress and strongly encourage readers to participate in order to inform and enlighten. There are certainly no delusions on our part that our writings will please everyone, so please feel free to offer corrections, dissent, and other points of view.

That said, there are a few basic rules:

  • You don’t need approval to comment. The flip side is that sometimes our Akismet spam filter makes the wrong diagnosis (especially if your comment really does sound spammy). In these cases, we may stumble upon your comment in the spam folder and approve it.
  • If your comment doesn’t appear, don’t assume you’re being censored. In general, we don’t care to censor (even though that is of course our full rights as Arctic Progress owners). Instead, please try to repost it and contact us about it.
  • There is a “reply” option after every individual comment. This feature is called “threaded comments” and it exists for a reason. It makes long conversations much easier to follow. Please use it.
  • Comments making ad hominem attacks may be deleted without notice (though sometimes we’ll keep them up for amusement purposes). Calling an argument “idiotic” is OK, but calling its proponent an “idiot” may be inaccurate, and is likely to lower the quality of the entire discourse.
  • We reserve the right to delete anything libelous against ourselves or other commentators. We’ve precious little interest in wasting our time replying to false accusations and even less in letting them stand unanswered.
  • Spam will be destroyed mercilessly.
  • Anything that could get us sued will be deleted with extreme prejudice.
  • Do not monopolize or hijack a conversation. It is typically considered impolite to post off-topic messages on blog posts.  For this purpose we will soon be opening a special Forum for discussing Arctic matters. Otherwise, we reserve the right to delete, truncate, or otherwise ignore these comments.
  • Do not type L1K3 7h15 because 1337-speak is annoying.
  • We would prefer it if you could refrain from making consecutive posts, especially if they’re on the same topic. Try to embed hyperlinks into the text (i.e. a href in HTML) instead of copying and pasting them.
  • Though Arctic Progress rejects “political correctness” orthodoxy, and aims to provide a platform for a true diversity of voices, there are still limits on what we accept. Things like unbridled racism and sexism, hate speech and Holocaust denial are very likely to be deleted.
  • We will not waste time with those who deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Due to the sheer weight of the scientific consensus behind AGW, and the likely devastating consequences of inaction, these people should no longer be dignified with terms like “contrarians” or “skeptics”. Today’s AGW deniers are almost always some combination of: ideologue; shill; ignorant. Their comments add no value and are likely to be deleted.
  • Swearing is allowed, but strongly discouraged.
  • Comments are subject to the Terms of Use of Arctic Progress.