Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules

We moderate comments. A bunch of questionable ones have built up over the last couple weeks until one of us had time to deal with them. This turned into a good opportunity to review why we are moderating and what the rules are. Side note - the new Blogger makes it even harder to edit a submitted comment, so the choice on any one comment is now "all or none".

One from the troll alleges criminal behavior on the part of a private citizen, not even from Maplewood. Rejected.

One from a not-troll has some good council bashing, but it is so tangled up with allegations against some mid-level Maplewood employees that it could not be saved even if we could easily edit. Rejected.

One with criminal allegations so obscure it is not clear if it is troll or not-troll. In the end it didn't matter. Rejected.

One from a not-troll making campaign finance allegations against Copeland with a general link to the campaign finance board webpage. Rejected.

One from Barbara wondering why it is not okay for her to question why Diana would leave a perfectly good job at Target. Good question. Accepted.

One from the troll on a fishing expedition. Rejected.



So here are some rules:

No allegations of illegal behavior without some sort of credible proof. If you have that for a new crime you should think about going to the police.

Nothing critical of private citizens, especially if they have not gone out of their way to be in the public eye.

Nothing critical of individual city employees who are not usually in the public eye. The line is fuzzy. Live with it.

Finally, let us be clear that this blog is private property; it's our back yard that we have invited you to come and play in. In the end, we make and interpret the rules, and can change them isf we wish, or choose not to apply them to ourselves. We are not likely to be perfectly consistent, especially since there are three of us and we will each see things a little differently when we happen to be making judgement calls.

If you have a burning need to communicate something to the world and we reject your comment, keep in mind that you can write letters to the editor, post to other discussion forums on the internet, or even create your own blog with your own rules.