Comment Posting Terms and Conditions

Last Updated: January 25, 2011

Welcome to the Gamasutra community. We’re dedicated to guiding a thoughtful, animated, respectful discussion on all sorts of topics relevant to game developers and gaming enthusiasts alike. To that end, we’ve put together this set of guidelines to help keep the conversation flowing smoothly.

1. Be thoughtful and constructive. This rule is number one because it’s the most important. We don’t just want comment threads full of inside jokes and snarky, “me-too” bashing of the subject at hand. Every comment should be thought-out and truly add something to the discussion.
2. Stay on topic. This can get a bit fluid as a thread that starts on one topic evolves into related tangents, but there are limits. For example, a story about Sony bringing PlayStation 2 game downloads to the PS3 is not necessarily the place to write about how the Dreamcast was the best system ever and should have sold better than the PS2 in the first place. If you are inspired by a thread to write about a totally different topic, take it over to the blogs and we'd love to see discussion start there.
3. Keep things respectful. That means no hateful speech, ethnic slurs, or ad hominem personal attacks. Criticizing a person’s work or ideas is OK (“Mario is overrated because it’s not that great a gameplay leap”). Criticizing someone personally or irrationally is not OK (“Mario is overrated because I hate Shigeru Miyamoto.”) Excessive use of profanity or vulgarity, especially in referring to fellow developers or commenters, is prohibited.
4. Use your full, real name (first and last) when posting. As an extension of this, don’t misrepresent yourself or your position in the industry through your posts, and don’t use more than one account to post on the site (we have ways of finding out). We also encourage you to use a real picture when posting, although other avatars are also permitted.
5. No posting irrelevant links. This includes commercial spam, links to offensive material, and purely self-promotional links that don’t apply to the topic thread. One exception: A single link to your personal web site is permitted as a signature.