My friends on the politics blog:
We’ve been getting a lot of complaints about the tone of some of the comments here. We are all for vigorous debate, and we have no desire to censor anyone’s ideas. As you all know, you are free (in fact, encouraged) to disgree with what you see here, in the strongest terms. But of late, the nastiness quotient is driving some of our loyal readers away and discouraging others from joining the discussion.
We aren’t going to try to block anyone or force registration or do anything else that would discourage any of you from easily posting. But we are going to get a bit more aggressive about deleting comments that are nothing more than personal ad hominem attacks -- mean-spirited stuff that is off point, does nothing for the issue debates and seeks to abuse or intimidate individuals.
You know who you are, and you know what I’m talking about.
I can’t promise that we’ll catch everything (we have a small staff), but if there’s anything in particular that bothers you that we missed, just let me know. Thanks.
Our new comments policy is here