Comment policy

Guidelines for comments and moderation to keep discussion civil and substantive.

We reserve the right to delete comments and ban users as needed to keep the comment threads here civil and substantive.

Our first rule is simple: Don’t be a jerk.

Here’s what we like to see in comments:

• Weigh in with smart, informed ideas that contribute further to the story.
• Give us useful, constructive criticism. Spot a typo or an error? Let us know and we will correct it.
• Demonstrate and share the intelligence, wisdom, and humor we know you possess.
• Don’t feed the trolls. Downvote and flag comments instead.

Although we can’t be everywhere at once, here are some of the kinds of comments we’re going to do our best to curtail:

• Impersonating authors or other commenters. We can’t believe we have to say this, but: Don’t do that. It’s weird.
• Comments that make it clear you didn’t read the article.
• Comments that are completely out of left field. Sometimes discussions veer off a bit, but are still related to the original subject. That is fine. Hijacking the conversation to promote off-topic commentary is not.
• Threats — no matter how vague — against the author or other commenters.
• Racism, sexism, homophobia, you get the drift.
• Trolling. If you’re a climate denier just out for a good trolling and are not contributing meaningfully to the conversation, we’ll be pushing you back under the bridge.