Michele and I choose to permit comments at Command Post because we believe the ability to participate in journalism is inherent to the nature of our site, and that the ability to exchange and argue over ideas is at the core of a vigorous democracy.

That said, our comments area is not a forum in which anything goes. We believe the democratic way of life, and a better understanding of humanity, are furthered not by any discourse, but by reasoned discourse. Our vision for the Command Post comments is a forum that not only permits the participation in journalism, that not only facilitates the exchange of perspectives, but that does so as a reflection of human civility.

So: We welcome you to post comments at Command Post, and we encourage you take part in our marketplace of ideas, be you left, right, or center; red, blue, or green; Christian, Muslim, or atheist. If you do, our comment policy is very simple. We welcome comments that are:

• Respectable: “Worthy of respect; fitted to awaken esteem; deserving regard; hence, of good repute; not mean.”

• Civil: “Not rude; marked by satisfactory (or especially minimal) adherence to social usages and sufficient but not noteworthy consideration for others.”

It’s a simple policy. It provides an enormous field for the exchange of ideas. It allows vigorous and heated arguments over policy or philosophy. It welcomes the familiar and the arcane, the banal and the compelling, the grave and the humorous.

It is also a policy we will enforce. We will delete comments that we feel do not meet the simple standards of respect and civility, and we will ban the IP address of those posting such comments. If you feel you have been treated unfairly as a result of this policy, we welcome your appeal via email. If your appeal is neither respectable nor civil, it is an appeal we will ignore.

What does the policy mean in application? Where we will draw the boundaries? We don’t know. We suppose our experience will be much as Justice Potter Stewart described the limitation of pornographic speech: we’ll know it when we see it. We can’t guarantee we won’t make bad calls. We can’t guarantee we won’t upset one or more of our readers. But we can guarantee that no deletion or IP ban will ever be because of a point of view; it will always be because a point of view was articulated with neither respect nor civility. We don’t want to engage in censorship, we want to engage in sense.

A commitment to respectable and civil commentary on a weblog. It may sound high minded. It may sound like not much fun. But it’s our forum, and it’s what we’ll allow. Readers disappointed in our perspective are welcome to create their own sites and maintain their own comment forums. Because we choose to believe that most people are reasonable … that they want an intelligent exchange of perspectives … that all things being equal, they’d choose not to engage in an online slugfest of slanderous rubes … we think it’s the right way to go.

So that’s what we’re going to try and create, and if we can’t do so, well, then frankly, we’d prefer not to have comments at Command Post. Because at the end of the day, this is a hobby for us. We derive virtually no economic benefit from Command Post. Our reward, and we presume the reward for our contributors, is intangible--the pride that comes from building something that others value, that is a unique first step for decentralized journalism. Command Post is something Michele and I love, and frankly it’s something of which we want to feel proud. Hateful, biting, insulting commentary does not make us feel proud. It robs us of one of the only rewards we derive from the site … our ability to say, “Look at what we made … it’s good, and it’s a model of what the online exchange of ideas and information can be.”

We will not be robbed. We have anywhere from 15,000 to 120,000 visitors a day to our corner of the blogosphere … we’re more than happy to alienate a handful if it’s the means of creating a forum of civil exchange for the remainder. And deep in our hearts, independent of the fact that such a forum is something we’ll feel better about, something of which we’ll be proud, we also believe such a forum is something the remainder will value, visit, and enjoy.

So, jump on in, but please keep it respectable and civil. It’s all we ask, and thanks for reading The Post.