The Comment Policy Is “Victorian Sufi Buddha Lite”

The famous SSC comment policy — 'Victorian Sufi Buddha Lite.' Per an 'ancient Sufi saying beloved of the Buddha' (actually Victorian poetry), every comment must pass at least two of three gates: true, necessary, kind. Controversial/speculative claims must be kind AND necessary; angry/sarcastic ones must be true AND necessary (a well-deserved, statistically-backed smackdown); off-topic ones must be true AND kind. Threats/doxxing/slurs fail as neither kind nor necessary; spam is kludged out separately. Plus the REPORT button, the 1-day/1-month/forever ban escalation, and leaving banned comments visibly flagged 'for approximately the same reason all those people in Game of Thrones leave bloody heads on spikes.'

Quality 72 · Strong. A crisp, iconic, and genuinely influential discourse-norm formulation ('true / necessary / kind — pass two of three') that has been widely adopted and cited well beyond SSC. Strong; brief and admin-flavored, which holds it here despite the outsized influence.

Claude’s paradigm shift 60 · Notable shift. The 'true/necessary/kind, pass two of three' gate framing is a fresh, memorable, much-imitated discourse norm. Notable.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. The 'two of three gates' policy became genuinely adopted/referenced as an online-discourse norm beyond SSC; influence within the niche, no material change. Moderate.