Comment Policy

Blossom's Comment Policy

Blossom maintains a very strict comment policy. We expect comments to maintain a proper adab (manners). If you act disrespectfully, you’ll be banned. Here’s more you should know whether you’re a regular commenter or new to the site.

As a general rule of thumb: do not engage in discussion or debate simply for the sake of winning. Discussion must involve learning and listening on both sides - not just talking.

If your comment does not immediately appear on the site after posting, it may have been flagged for review. There are a number of things which will get your comment flagged for review, we ask that you please keep that in mind before resubmitting the comment multiple times or contacting us about it.

• Use of any of the curse words and/or slurs we have on our blacklist will automatically flag a comment so it won’t appear on our site. Sometimes these words are used as part of a good discussion, these comments will be approved by a moderator when appropriate.
• Using a Disqus account without a verified email address will automatically flag a comment.
• Comments can also be flagged for review by our readership (please do not abuse this option for other users you simply disagree with, it makes our moderation jobs a lot harder).
• Other things. Sometimes a comment may get flagged without an obvious reason.

Here are some things which will get your comment deleted:

• Personal attacks against another commenter or the writer of the post/website. This can run from name calling to sentences which include the words “people like you” or statements which begin “I bet you” or “you must/probably” etc. This is regardless of what “side” you’re on.
• Jokes or aggressive negative comments on the aesthetic appearance of a person (commenters, writers, and people mentioned in an article alike).
• Hate speech or other clearly intentional jerk behavior.

Here are some things which will get your account banned.

• Engaging in any of the previously mentioned delete-worthy behaviors consistently and as part of a clear pattern OR presenting a particularly egregious example of one of those behaviors as a first comment. We normally give one warning to a user before banning unless a pattern of behavior is clear. However, if a user commits one of these behaviors as their very first comment, we’ll skip that step. Disqus grants us the ability to see a commenter’s patterns of behavior on other Disqus-enabled sites as well, and we do not hesitate to consider behavior on other sites when determining whether to ban.
• Hate reading. If your history of commenting on Blossom makes it seem like you only visit the site to start fights or specifically to disagree with us whenever we publish a post involving our core themes and for no other reason, we will ban you.
• It is at the editors' discretion to ban anyone whom they determine to be a detriment to the atmosphere of the comments section, the site in general, and our regular readers.

If you’re having a disagreement with another user and your replies have gone into the double digits, consider stepping back from the computer for a while. We love discussion, but remember the Hadith:

If you’re having a disagreement with another user and your replies have gone into the double digits, consider stepping back from the computer for a while. We love discussion, but remember the Hadith:

"I guarantee a house on the outskirts of Paradise for one who abandons arguments even if he is right." - Sunan Abu Dawuda