Comments

I welcome comments on the Coffee Spot, either on the posts or on the About pages where comments are enabled. You can also like and share any of the posts (by e-mail or through various social networks) by using the Share This button at the bottom of the post. Feel free to share as many posts as you like. Please note (and I never thought that I’d have to say this) that sharing a post does not including copying the entire text of the post and reproducing it on your own website!

If you wish to comment, please ensure you have read these guidelines. I reserve the right to remove any comments that I feel breach either the guidelines or their spirit.

Identification

Before you can comment, you must identify yourself. You have a number of options. You can:

  • log in using an existing WordPress.com account
  • post a comment using your name and e-mail address (only your name is displayed)
  • post a comment using your Facebook or Twitter account

If you comment using your name and e-mail address, I would prefer it if you use your own name. I have never understood nor liked the internet’s habit of encouraging people to post under pseudonyms. If you have something to say, at least be prepared to put your name to it. That said, I understand that for perfectly legitimate reasons, people sometimes prefer not to use their real names. If this applies to you, then please register under your pseudonym of choice.

If you have an avatar from the gravatar service (http://en.gravatar.com/) then it should link to your account as long as you use the same e-mail.

Once you have registered, your first comment will require verification (from me) before it is published. After that, comments should be published straight away.

Commenting

So, onto the comments themselves. The most important thing to remember is that Brian’s Coffee Spot is a positive place, set up to share a love of good coffee and great coffee spots. With that in mind, while I welcome disagreement, please be positive, polite and as far as possible objective. Please avoid making statements of opinion as if they were fact (opinion is fine, it just needs to be clearly framed as opinion). If you are making assertions of fact, please back those up wherever possible. Comments which blatantly knock places or people are likely to removed immediately, as are those using bad language, even if used humorously or as a quotation.

If you have a specific issue with a Coffee Spot (eg an instance of poor service) please take it up with the management of the Coffee Spot in question rather than airing it here. By all means, leave a comment to the effect that you found the customer service poor if that’s the case, but please refrain from making specific accusations.

Also, please try and stay on-topic. If you’re commenting on a post about a particular coffee spot, stick to discussion of that establishment or the issues raised in the post. Obviously common sense applies: if you’re reading about a coffee spot and it sounds just like one of your favourites, mentioning that is fine.

Finally, please don’t post the same (or very similar comments) on multiple points. Once is enough, thank you. If you need to, you can always refer back to the post where you made the original comment.

No Advertising

Please refrain from using comments for advertising. For example, If you have your own blog and you want me to link to it or you want to use my site to generate traffic, do me the courtesy of e-mailing me your URL and I’ll check it out. I’m happy to cross-link to other blogs that I like. However, if you just post up the URL of your blog in a comment, chances are I’ll just take it down.

Similarly, no advertising your own establishment/service please. And no dissing the competition either. This doesn’t mean that you can’t comment if you’re the owner of a place (particularly the one being written about) but please refrain from advertising your own place.

Finally, please refrain from passing off large extracts from your own blog posts as comments. Short quotes (preferable framed as such) are fine. Similarly, don’t post links to tweets or Facebook posts, just say what you have to say in the comment.

Correcting Errors

I go to great lengths to ensure that everything I publish is factually correct. If you spot what you believe to be an error, I would prefer it if you could e-mail me, but failing that, please mention it in a comment and I will do my best to correct it.

2 thoughts on “Comments

  1. Beautiful article, which reminds me of the old days in euston square, when the happiness of life is as simple as getting a triple shot americano before heading to the library. Remembered the name of the barista who wore glasses in the photo was Marco. He’s from north Italy, and maybe he or Josh (another barista) once told me that the correct quote of one of the line that shows in Jikajika should be ‘ good coffee is as dark as death, and as strong as Turkish man’. Thank you Brian, for bringing in this precious nostalgic moment 🙂

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