When we first launched the site it was based on the premise of Wheat & Tares. The parable cautions:
“pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also. Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is full ripe.”
That’s why one of our founding principles is a light moderation policy. What does wheat look like? What does a tare look like?
It’s fairly hard to tell which is which, except of course that the wheat in this image is ripe and golden, whereas tares don’t ripen to a golden yellow. That’s the point really. We’re all tares on this earth until we ripen and are then harvested (based on who or what we’ve become). It’s too close to call in the meantime, and it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
We might be wheat or we might be something that looks like wheat but doesn’t actually contribute positively to society. The difference is that people have capacity (unlike tares) to actually change our nature. And people do change, all the time.
While our goal at Wheat & Tares is to have a light moderation policy, that doesn’t mean we are hands-off or that our patience is infinite. We want healthy, robust discussions with interesting people who are engaging in good faith.
Updated Policy (10/27/2024)
Ultimately, our authors are volunteers who want to talk about things that interest us. Each author has the ultimate discretion for what constitutes good faith engagement with their post.
Our author team may act as a group when a commenter is problematic across multiple topics, or an individual author may determine that a commenter is unwilling to engage in good faith on a specific post or topic. Moderation may vary as a result. We are doing our best to create a community we and you will enjoy.
Wheat behaviors:
- Participate in the discussion, don’t just lurk!
- Move the ball forward.
- If you dislike a comment, explain your perspective.
- If you like a comment, give it a thumbs up!
- Offer to guest post if you have something lengthy to say.
- If you value this community, consider contributing to the cost of running the site or submitting a guest post.
Tare behaviors:
- Personal attacks on authors or commenters.
- Hate speech.
- Derailing or high jacking discussions–give others a chance to talk!
- Writing a novel in the comments or dominating the conversation.
- Using sock puppets.
- Drive by trolling or bad faith engagement.
- Not responding when our team reaches out to you, or responding with hostility or unwillingness to change the unwanted behavior.
While we take individual complaints from commenters seriously, that doesn’t mean it will result in moderation. If you feel your comment has been accidentally caught in our spam filter, please notify us. Akismet works in mysterious ways.
Wheat & Tares 