Welcome to Delaware Liberal 3.0.
Along with the site redesign, we have decided to grant a complete and total amnesty to all previously banned or moderated commentators out there who have broken our site rules in the past.
Why?
Because we wanted to post iron clad and transparent rules for commenting on Delaware Liberal so that no one can claim we are censoring anyone when we moderate a comment or ban a commentator, or that we are being arbitrary in our moderating a comment. So, going forward, when we moderate a comment or ban someone, you will know precisely why.
There will be a two-tier system. In the first tier are two categories of comments that will result in instant and irrevocable banning of the commentator without a warning. Those categories are:
1. Personal threats or intimidations of physical violence.
Political debate can get personal here, and we expect name calling at times. Hell, we even engage in it from time to time. But no one can ever be allowed to personally threaten violence in order to either win the argument or to shut up his or her opponent. We are not talking about general hyperbole here (i.e. Republicans should be round up and shot). While such general hyperbole is wrong, it is not bannable. All that will result is you being roundly condemned. I should know.
2. Outting
This is self explanatory. If you post a comment that reveals personal, private and identifying information concerning any Delaware Liberal contributor or commentator that uses an anonymous or pseudonymous user name or handle, you will be banned instantly with no recourse.
The second tier has two categories of comments as well. However, instead of instant banning, the commentator of such below comments will be given a warning and will lose posting privileges for 24 hours. The warning will be sent to the email you provide when posting your comment. If you provide a fake email, then we will embarrass you by posting the warning publicly in the comment thread. The offending comment itself will be deleted. Repeated violations of the below rules after the warning will eventually result in banning, but that will be at the discretion of the editorial board of Delaware Liberal.
3. Vile bigoted statements
We are talking about racial, homophobic, sexist, ethnic, and antisemitic slurs. We are not talking about profanity or profane name calling. Calling someone an “asshole” is ok. Calling someone a “f__” is not.
Here is an example of a comment from Kaveman that resulted in his banning (offending slurs are redacted):
I love the DOI and I love getting filthy rich selling guns and ammo in the shadow of the n_____ King!!! Hell, even the head n_____ can’t be all that bad once he threw f____ under the bus!!!
Now, sometimes such slurs are used not as slurs but as examples or actual quotes of what other people are saying or thinking. We advise against that, but if you must, please redact those slurs as I have above. This will be known as the Context Exception.
4. Spam
Sometimes a commentator will repeatedly post comments that are off topic to the thread and have multiple links in them to promote their pet issue. This is allowed in Open Threads (which will become much more frequent in this new design), but not in topic-specific threats. I doubt this rule will be an issue, as most real spam is caught by our automated Spam Filter, but sometimes it misses one, or sometimes a new commenter decides to go nut and copy and paste spam into every comment spread.
So, we are starting over, and hopefully some of the previously banned commenters will embrace this second chance. Realistically though, some of the previously banned will no doubt break the above rules again and will have to be warned or banned again. But hey, we are liberals and we like to believe in rehabilitation.