FemPop Service Announcement: Commenter Guidelines

This lady would like to engage you in a polite discussion about the ethical ramifications of True Blood.

Please know that instead of writing what follows, I was pretty effin’ tempted to just post a link to a youtube video of some high school production of the King and I where a bosomy 16 year old would bellow “Getting To Know You!” but then I realized that while that might be entertaining it wouldn’t be very instructive.

When Alex set out to create this site, she did so with a pure heart, probably no pants on, and a desire to create a forum where ideas involving the role of women in popular and fringe entertainment culture and current events could be explored in a non-traditional, engaging, way. I think she’s done a pretty stellar job this far, but I am biased because she is my boss and better at throwing knives long distance than you’d think.

One of the best things about this site – in my humble estimation – is the opportunity it provides for folks to speak up and share their own thoughts. And because this is the internet, this happens in the comments section.

None of you are internet virgins, you know what a mixed bag commenting communities can be. Visit a site like Gawker or Salon and take a look around if you aren’t sure what I mean. On any given site you’ll find trolls, cliques, well-meaning frequent readers, angry angry angry people, someone who is five, and an old man who thinks he is on Google.

The commenting community of any given site can change the way in which you perceive the provided conent as a whole. In an ideal world, it should be a reflection of that content – not the Hyde to the site’s Jekyll, as is often the case.

Now that our site is growing up, getting zitty, display its baby fat in cute little crops tops to our horrified joy, the time has come to set three ground rules for commenting on the site.

1.) The Golden Rule: If you really hate the site, go elsewhere, create your own site, register IHateFemPop.com, we applaud your initiative and your right to do so. This is a forum, but it is a moderated one and all comments are vetted at the editors’ discretion.

2.) Hate Speech: If you have issues with a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation or identification, or anything of this ilk and you comment offensively and/or without content, your comment will be removed.

2.) Personal Attacks: We post articles fully anticipating – and excited to – engage the reading community in debate. Because we are human peoples, we will all have differences of opinions. I am allowed to think vampires are scarier than zombies, Alex is allowed to think zombies are scarier than vampires. We can (and have) argued about this for many, many years. We are critical of each other’s reasoning and research and we present arguments and evidence to sway the other to our side. We expect you to do the same. The minute a critique of an argument becomes a critique of the writer, their ability, or their intelligence, we’re going to remove your comment. We do this not because we can’t take a little sass, but because we want to create a commenting community where anyone and everyone feels comfortable reading comments and making their own.

That’s it guys. Three rules. And yes I am totally aware that one of them is essentially “We Do What We Want” but I stand by it. Now get out there and have fun, y’all!

Also – vampires are infinitely more frightening than zombies because they have intellect and are tied to satan.