Hi, everyone! I’m back from vacation about two weeks later than I expected, but I’m ready to start writing again. Juliana’s at a FEE seminar this week, but she’s still going to be writing regularly here at Missing Comma.

This week, we’re taking a break from our 24/7 coverage of Anthony Cumia (kidding) to ask a short question: Should C4SS adopt a “safe spaces” comment policy?

For the past several months, we here at the Center have debated the addition of some kind of a “safe spaces” comment policy, but recently, we’ve entered into a deadlock. Some of us are absolutely for such a comment policy, and some of us are for a comment policy that promotes complete freedom of speech, even at the risk of constantly having to fend off hordes of Nazis. We have not decided anything on a concrete level yet; this is all still in the discussion phase.

It’s worth pointing out, of course, that the C4SS comment section has, at least in the two years I’ve written here, been relatively tame in the inflammatory, racist or bigoted comment department, and that’s part of the reason for our deadlock: would the addition of a safe spaces policy be addressing an existing problem, or is it tilting at windmills, so to speak?

It occurred to me recently, during one of the internal discussions regarding this topic, that while we’ve spent months and months debating among ourselves, we’ve never asked what the group of people this is going to effect the most – you – thought about it. Missing Comma is the unofficial-official “ombudsman” blog of C4SS, and as its co-writer, I saw this lack of contact with you, the reader, as a potentially disastrous oversight that needs to be corrected immediately.

So, what do you think? Should the Center for a Stateless Society adopt some form of a “Safe Spaces” policy? If yes, why? If no, why not? What would such a thing look like? What would be the best way to implement it? Leave a comment with your answers below. Alternately, you can tweet your responses to @c4ssdotorg or the Missing Comma Twitter account, @missingcomma; you can also post to the hashtag, #c4sscomments. We’ll talk about some of your best answers next week!