Community Guidelines
My Philosophy of Online Community:
I believe that online communities should be treated with the same respect and caution that people treat in-person communities. There are direct, indirect, and structural impacts of online communities, just like in-person communities. This article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy goes into much more detail than I will (for reasons of keeping this page brief yet informative) and I recommend reading it. It gives great insight into why, how, and where people are still learning to navigate online communities.
Online communities also contain people from all over the world and different communities, so ideally, people will act with extra respect and compassion.
Generally, I think the more people treat online communities the way they treat their own community, the healthier online communities will be.
What I Expect from Commenters:
As I stated above, I believe everyone should treat online communities the way they treat in-person communities. This means that commenters should be polite and respectful when sharing opinions. I encourage discourse, almost like an online Socratic Seminar, as the more ideas are brought and debated, the more everyone will grow. Having an opinion, and educating opinions, is a great thing for everyone. I hope everyone will learn how to disagree without being disagreeable or rude, and comfortable disagreeing with people "more powerful" than themselves.
My Policies on Flagging and Removing Inappropriate Comments:
I'm a big proponent for the First Amendment Right to Free Speech. However, I expect users to flag hate speech and comments created with the only intent of harming another person or group of people (which is essentially hate speech). Hate speech still falls under Free Speech (although not all forms are protected), but I do not want a community built around people harming and offending one another. I don't plan on removing comments, but I will hide them and explain why each comment is hidden--they'll still be accessible through the hidden comments button. This is because I don't want other users to feel obligated to read hate speech, but the people who comment it should be held accountable for it. Erasing it doesn't hold them accountable.
This will not be cancel culture or history erasure; moving the comments and explaining why they're inappropriate is simply creating a space to discuss their inappropriateness and give users a chance for reformation and accountability.
My Policy on Banning Users Entirely:
Generally, I will enact a three strike policy. However, in extreme cases, there will be zero tolerance.