Greetings, Gamasutra community.

My name is Kyle Orland. In addition to my regular news posting duties here at Gamasutra, I'll be managing the community for the site going forward. Basically, that means I'll be making sure the discussion among readers in comment threads and blog posts remains productive and respectful.

To that end, we've crafted some commenting guidelines meant to keep things running smoothly (they are also copied below). These are in addition to the existing blog posting guidelines which are still in effect.

Also, later this week, I'll be introducing a new "Comments of the Week" feature that highlights the week's most insighftul and thought-provoking comments. Winners will receive a random gift from my box of game-related swag... valued at roughly $0, yours FREE!

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or notice any problems with user-posted content on the site. Or you can just leave a comment on this post... chances are I'll see it =).

Comment Posting Terms and Conditions 

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 real name 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.

Commenters who violate these policies could have their comments deleted or, in the case of egregious or frequent violations, have their posting privileges revoked.