There’s a new comment policy here on TheAngryGM.com.

First, you have to be a registered user to comment. That ain’t a big deal. You’ll notice the sidebar on the right now has a place for your to register and a place for you to login. It’s also easier to find the Comment and Article RSS feeds if you use that black magic hoodoo s$&%. There’s no cost for registering or anything. No personal information gathered. Just an e-mail address. Das ist alles.

Second, all comments are now going to be held for moderation. It’ll take a new comment up to 24 hours to appear on the site. I’ll be doing comment moderation at least once a day. So it’ll never be more than 24 hours. If your comment doesn’t appear after 24 hours, I axed it. That time frame is subject to change if I get overwhelmed.

And that’s it. That’s the comment policy. I’ll decide what posts and what doesn’t. And what doesn’t get posted gets tossed in the trash. Oh, and I will also decide who gets to be a registered user and who gets tossed in the trash. Simple, right?

Now, you might be wondering why I’m making this sudden change. Well, frankly, I’m embarrassed, annoyed, and exhausted. I used to brag about my comment section. It was one of the best comment sections in the internet RPG space. It was full of thoughtful analysis and constructive discussion. And I didn’t have to do much of anything to make it that way. Things were good.

And that was good because I read every comment. I didn’t really respond to all of them and sometimes it took me a few days to read them all, but I did read every comment. Even the ones that disagreed with me. Which are, by the way, totally fine and not a problem at all. You can disagree with me. I don’t give a s$&%. I’ve made my best case for everything I’ve said on this site and if you’re still not convinced after that or want to go your own way, well, that’s your problem. No skin off my back. Or nose. Wherever skin comes off of.

Now, most of the comments are still good. Still worth reading. The discussion is still great. Most of the discussion. But the discussion that ISN’T great is starting to really weigh on me. Because it’s starting to increase. It’s starting to get out of hand.

I want my comment section to be a place of thoughtful, critical, constructive discussion with one asshole occasionally ruining everything. And I get to be the asshole because I own the site. The problem is, there’s a lot more crap lately that isn’t constructive. And that s$&% wastes my time. Because I really do read every comment. And it also wastes the time of my readers. Now, I’m not talking about trolls and flames and s$&%posting. I don’t have much of that and I can sense it and axe it pretty quickly. The nonconstructive s$&% I’m talking about is things like endless discussions of minor points that have nothing to do with the ideas in the article. Like people ripping apart particular examples or analogies using weird-ass corner cases. Completely off-topic crap. Or people telling me something like a crafting system is a waste of time and doomed to fail. Or three dozen know-it-all assholes shredding a facetious, tongue-in-cheek remark I made about how “50% of people have below average skills” with their “superior math skillz” as if that adds anything at all to the discussion. Yes. Three dozen. Over three dozen. That was what finally broke me, by the way. It wasn’t insults or death threats or shitposts. I can handle those. I get them all the time. It wasn’t being told I was wrong. It wasn’t having to have the “if you don’t want a crafting system, don’t use it” argument for the four hundredth time. It was that “50% of people are below average… well, ACTUALLY…” thing. Especially after I posted a comment saying the thread was nonconstructive, no one was impressed, and the topic was over.

The reason it broke me is because IT WAS A F$&%ING TONGUE-IN-CHEEK REMARK. A JOKE. IT WAS A F$%&ING JOKE. And I love jokes. This whole website is very good gaming advice caked in a big, overplayed, overwrought joke. But people are now ruining the fun of making jokes. Because the circles in the Venn diagram showing “gamer geeks” and “huge, insufferable, humorless pricks” practically share the same origin. If you know what I mean. Well, it seems like that sometimes. Because I know they are actually just a loud, obnoxious minority.

So, as always happens, the loud, obnoxious minority ruins it for everyone. And now my comment section is fully moderated. And it will be moderated with an iron fist and with no transparency. Because the assholes have started ruining my fun. Which, by the way, means that if your comment starts off with something nonconstructive and obnoxious, it doesn’t matter if it’s followed by ten paragraphs of game design genius. No one will ever read it. Not even me. If I can’t get past the first paragraph without my blood boiling, your comment is going to get flushed. And you might go with it.

Or I might edit it down to nothing and post it anyway to rub it in your face and dare you to comment again. With full disclosure of course. I have never edited a comment without clearly stating that I edited it. I may be a spiteful sonofabi$&%, but I AM honest.

On the plus side, this means I won’t feel the need to spend nearly as much time in each Long, Rambling Introduction™ telling everyone what arguments and discussions I won’t be tolerating in the comment section. And it’ll be a fun guessing game for all of you to try to avoid whichever topics I have already decided in my head I am no longer putting up with.

Anyway, that’s all. Feel free to comment on this post to let me know what you think of this policy.