This page holds the main information about the site; what we’re here for, what I hope it will do, and what it’s for. Also copyright information, legal stuff, and recommendations.

Rules of Engagement

If this site develops as I hope it will, the comments will be a battleground between opposing camps, using reasoned debate, toy problems, and scenarios that the person writing may or may not believe to be true as a means of figuring out exactly what the opposing camp is trying to say. The purpose of the rules of engagement is to keep things sufficiently civil for us to make progress. The rules:

• No attacking or denigrating individuals for their statements.
• If you're playing devil’s advocate, we have a special font for that - use it.
• Toy problems and scenarios are welcome and useful (also with their own font), so don't just say "that’s a toy problem so it doesn't prove my theory is wrong," say "your toy problem doesn’t capture the part of the problem I’m trying to address. You need to add x and y so that I can explain what I’m trying to say."
• If you’re using a term from the terminology wiki, link to the definition you want to use or put your definition in the text. Eventually, the comments form will automatically scan for terms present in the wiki and provide a drop down list or ask you to select the phrase that defines it.

Rules for onlookers, bystanders, and journalists:

This is a playpen for ideas. If you want to take something someone said and use it in another place (like an article or a blog post), please email the site admin with what you’re planning to say so we can make sure you're not misunderstanding the context of the comment. Do not publish until you have received email verification from us or the author. We will aim to keep the turnaround time below two days. If you post without going through this process, and the author takes issue with the way you interpreted their words, we will follow up with, first, a request for a correction, and second, legal action.

Legal stuff

Blog posts, including images, are owned by the author and are by default CC-BY, unless otherwise marked.

Borrowed images will have citations below them and link to the original image if it is available online. This is a non-commercial site, focused on educational purposes, so in most cases images will be technical data rather than illustrations. If you would like to use a professional artist’s work in a blog post, wiki entry, or comment, please get the creator’s permission first. If the creator objects and the use is not fair use, the content will be removed. If you find an image whose source is not cited, please inform the site admin and the situation will be rectified. This site is not responsible for resolving disputes between content owners and site contributors and will not pay licensing fees for content; payment is the responsibility of the contributor.

Blog posts and comments alike are owned by the author in their unofficial capacity, and have no relationship to any employer’s official stance on any of the topics discussed, unless otherwise marked.