House rules

Clear rules are a thing for me. I don’t like ambiguity or rules that change from moment to moment without prior warning. Rules should be fair and applicable to everyone.

So, I’m going to give it a shot and write down some rules for my blog. These will be as impartial as possible, so if you see me breaking my own rules, let me know!

Comments

I absolutely love getting comments on my posts. However, I would like to ask you to refrain from saying hurtful things to other commenters or to me. Sometimes you may hurt someone unintentionally. That’s ok. What’s not ok is to blame them for feeling hurt just because you didn’t mean it that way. Please listen when someone shows their vulnerability. And obviously it’s really not ok to intentionally hurt someone. If that happens, I will edit or delete your comment. This is my place and in the end I am the one to decide what is ok, and what gets you kicked out the door faster than you can say “But that’s not fair!”

Updates

Sometimes I feel the need to edit my posts. When it’s correcting a typo or rewriting a sentence to say the same thing in a different way, I won’t make a note of that. However, when it’s a significant update, like deleting part of a post, adding extra content, or linking to new information, I will always make a mention of that. Sometimes it will be in the text, sometimes it will be at the bottom of the post.

I don’t know how useful this is to know, because new visitors won’t have a clue and old visitors are unlikely to re-read old posts very often, but I still think it’s fair to let you know.

Copyright

This may go without saying, but the content on my blog (words, pictures, etc) belongs to me. Sharing a link to my original posts is wonderful, because that means I get more visitors and that’s a good thing! You can also quote from posts, comments and other content in your own work without asking my permission, although I would like to be acknowledged as the source. You can also print out articles for your personal use.

What you can’t do without my permission is print out lots of copies to distribute among people. What you can’t do without my permission is quoting me in a context that isn’t the same as the context it was taken from, like insinuating my support for a cause that I don’t actually support, or using my words to harass or discriminate against other people. What you can’t do without my permission is copying, reproducing, or republishing complete articles on my blog without asking my permission first. And of course, passing off my work as your own is utterly wrong.

Please contact me if you’re unsure.

Images

Images on this blog are either photos taken by myself (like the one on the left) or photos I have permission to use. I don’t use Google Images to find images to use on my blog (and neither should you). I have paid money to be allowed to use some of the stock photography you see. So please don’t download and reuse these images. Ever. See also copyright section above. If you need tips on how to get good quality photos for your own blog or website, I’ll be glad to help you out. You can also Google for images published under a Creative Commons License. To be clear: none of the images you will find here are published under a Creative Commons License.

Editing your comments

This is a risky one. As a commenter, you have the copyright on your words just as I have copyright on mine, which means I can’t simply go around editing stuff at will. However, sometimes people use HTML tags in their comments and don’t close them properly, screwing up the formatting. I will usually edit those comments to fix the formatting, because I’m obsessive-compulsive like that.

Another obsessive-compulsive thing is typos. I will make a very conscious effort never to edit your comment unless you ask me to in another comment. In that case, I will probably fix other typos that you haven’t spotted yet, too. But only after you give me permission to edit. So I hope you’re ok with that. If not, please let me know.

That’s so fussy!
Oops. I meant funny. Can you fix my typo?

I won’t edit comments because you want to add extra information or want to rewrite what you said because you’re unhappy with the phrasing. That’s what replies are for. I know it sucks but I simply don’t have time to edit your comments every time you think of a better way to say things. Typos get fixed. Crappy writing is here to stay.