Last updated: 6 August 2026
What this page covers
The Terms & Conditions set out the agreement between us. This page is narrower: it describes how the site may be used and what is expected of anyone who comments. The Privacy Policy explains what happens to your data.
If the three ever conflict, the Terms & Conditions take precedence.
Acceptable use
You are welcome to read, quote, cite, link to and argue with anything here. In using the site, you agree not to:
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to the site, its server or any connected system;
- interfere with its operation, including by introducing malicious code or by placing unreasonable load on it;
- scrape or harvest content systematically, or reproduce substantial portions of it, beyond what is described in the Terms & Conditions;
- collect other commenters’ details from the site for any purpose;
- use the site for anything unlawful, or in a way that infringes anyone’s rights.
Comment policy
The comment threads exist for substantive discussion. Disagreement is genuinely welcome — a good part of the value of writing about contested subjects is being told where the argument is weak. Robust criticism of an argument is fine. What is not fine is directed at people rather than positions.
Comments will be removed if they are:
- abusive, harassing, threatening, or targeted at another commenter personally;
- discriminatory on grounds of race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
- defamatory, or accusing a named individual or organisation of wrongdoing without evidence;
- promotional, spam, or posted principally to drive traffic elsewhere;
- infringing someone’s copyright;
- posted under a deliberately misleading identity, particularly one impersonating a real person.
A note on this site’s subject matter: posts here frequently criticise the funding arrangements and lobbying positions of named organisations. Criticism of an organisation’s published positions is exactly what the comments are for. Unevidenced allegations about the conduct of named individuals are not, and will be removed.
Please also keep in mind that comment threads are public and indexed by search engines. Do not post other people’s personal information, and think before posting your own.
Moderation
Comments may be held for moderation before appearing. I moderate as a person with other work, not as a service, so there may be a delay.
I may edit a comment to remove a breach of this policy rather than delete it entirely, and where I do I will say so. Persistent breaches may result in future comments being blocked.
These are editorial decisions on a personal website. They are not censorship, and there is no appeal process — but if you think I have got one wrong, write to me and say so.
Reporting a problem
To report a comment, a copyright concern, a security issue or a factual error, write to tim@timarrowsmith.com. For copyright complaints, please identify the material, explain your rights in it, and give me a way to contact you.
Contact
Dr. Timothy Arrowsmith — tim@timarrowsmith.com