Rules for comments and forums • The Register

One of the biggest surprises of my tenure at El Reg so far is the activity in our forums and article comments. Reg readers are engaged, opinionated, and unafraid to express themselves. I love this. Thank you for reading, and for commenting.

But I recently saw a critique that we were in danger of letting the forums become a Nazi bar. I’m familiar with the concept, as well as Godwin’s Law. We don’t want that here. We want a community where people can be unafraid to express themselves – particularly about our main topic of coverage, which is technology – but that doesn’t feel like wading through a cesspool. Moderation is an art. It is also vital.

Register editors are responsible for moderating, and we have many other duties as well, so please bear with us if we don’t get to moderation right away. And if you see comments or a thread going off the rails, don’t necessarily assume we’ve seen it and are ignoring it. Our current comment system flags certain posts automatically, but not all. (I am not revealing more details because it’d just help miscreants game the system.) You can report posts by clicking the “report abuse” link that appears in the top right corner of every comment. We’ll see it sooner.

Now that you understand that we’re busy human people on the other end, some guidelines are in order. We will delete without hesitation the following types of garbage:

• Threats of violence against any individual or group.
• Prejudicial remarks attributing bad actions or behavior (criminality, terrorism, idiocy, etc.) on a blanket basis to all members of a particular group (racial, ethnic, tech tribe, etc.).
• Any mention of Nazis or Hitler. We know you’re trolling. (And don’t “what about other dictators/evil people” me either. I’m old and have been online far too long to engage in this particular line of argument.)
• Ungrounded accusations of wrongdoing or criminal behavior against individuals.
• Advertisements or commercial posts. Sorry, crypto-recovery-scam spammers.
• Doxxing other forum members.
• Anything else we see fit! Really.

We may ban you entirely depending on the precise nature of the comment. Swearing or commenting as an anonymous coward increases your chances of a ban.

Don’t like it? Comment elsewhere. Our house, our rules.

Thanks again for reading and engaging with us and each other.