By commenting on or otherwise using this blog, you agree to these terms of service and comment policy.

Thanks to Teli Adlam, publisher of the OptiNiche Blog, for the template I used to develop this page.

1.  You are responsible for the content of any comment posted here, and hold harmless the publisher of Foggy Bottom Line for any libel or other injury, criminal or civil, they cause to others.

2.  Comments remain the intellectual property of the authors, but by posting them at Foggy Bottom Line you grant me the right, in perpetuity, to use, alter, and/or display them however I see fit.

3.  All comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks made to Foggy Bottom Line are moderated.  Comments by previously approved users will be approved automatically, but I reserve the right to withdraw this privilege if, in my sole judgement, it has been abused.  I work to review and approve comments as quickly as possible, so please do not resubmit your comment if it does not appear right away.

4.  My goal here is to create a forum for a wide ranging discussion of subjects of all types, though I may not personally engage in every discussion and commenters should not assume that I will.  Since language, invective, and the content of arguments can only be evaluated subjectively, and I am not easily offended, I plan to permit a broad range of discussion techniques, so users must also have thick skins.  That said, commenters must stay on topic, contribute to the argument, and avoid gratuitous obscenity and ad hominem attacks.  I reserve the sole right to judge the value and content of all comments, and edit or delete them as I see fit.

5. The general policy of Foggy Bottom Line is to avoid banishment of users.  You will not be refused comment publishing privileges at FBL solely for offending me or others.  I will block individual commenters only if, in my judgement, you are posting comments here as a means of harassing me or other users.  Further, I reserve the right to delete specific comments made  by any user, so repeated trangressions, which I reserve the right to define, will as a practical matter mean exclusion from discussions here.

6.  Please keep comments concise.  If you cannot make your point in less than 3-400 words, consider publishing it as a thought on your own blog and trackback. If trackback is disabled, you are welcome to leave a comment summarizing your entry with a link to continue reading it.

7.  Please link to sources when possible.  If you link to content that may offend others, or is not safe for the workplace, include a warning.  I reserve the sole right to delete links if in my judgement the link does not contribute to the dialogue (pornography, for example, rarely will).

8.  Do not cut and paste URLs into the body of a comment.  Use proper XHTML markup: <a href=”…” title=”…”>Link Anchor Text</a>.  Please use descriptive anchor text (bad: <a href=”…”>click here</a>; good: <a href=”…”>Google Homepage</a>.  Double check your links, because any link which returns an error, leads to a site under construction, or cannot be loaded by the browser will be removed.

9. Please use a valid e-mail address when commenting on the blog. It will not be displayed unless you type it in the body of your comment (which I will usually edit out) and you will not be subscribed to any mailing list by leaving a comment.  If you use an invalid e-mail address or one which requires any type of human interaction to confirm I’m not a spammer, your comment will be deleted — no exceptions.

10. I reserve the right to update or change these terms of service at any time.