I see the larger issue being to determine what does LG want to be. The more of a public fora, a town square, a tool for Northfield-area political/social/economic discussions, the more LG should model itself under U.S. constitutional principles especially free speech, transparency, equal access, and so forth. The more that LG wants to have select members, select discussions, and a private purpose, the more I am OK with restrictive rules.

My comments thus far have been assuming that LG wants to serve the purpose of public debate, so I think that LG should start with the free speech standard and make as few changes to it as possible. Our free speech laws have had over 200 years of refinements, so they are a good place to start.

If I am right in my assumption, I agree with you that there should be transparency in notice and process. Posting guidelines and the moderation procedure should be clearly defined and easy to find; moving axed posts to a “Misfits” thread would only help the LG community see that a post was axed for tone, irrelevance, or some other criterion, rather than have us wonder if a post was axed because of censorship.

I recognize that LG is a private project and that there is no obligation for it to model itself on constitutional principles. I think that the constitutional principles are the right approach to public debate and therefore the right approach for LG to be used for public debate. I don’t mind more rules, such as no profanity, no thread drift, etc., so long as more rules aren’t oppressive.

I’m also OK with the moderators making mistakes. I mean that if we don’t persuade LG to change to be what we want, LG is still a valuable community tool, and our continued participation may eventually change our opinions or the moderators’. LG can evolve through many phases. I am happy to be involved with its evolution.

Applied to LG, it’s important to have posting ethics and an etiquette minimum. I hope for policies that (1) recognize we’re all adults, (2) we have diverse and sometimes conflicting views, (3) don’t impose fear of moderation but rather encourage us to self-moderate, and (4) give room for adversity and collaboration to the ends of the best discussions. While my experience moderating online discussions sometimes has me wishing to create more stringent rules, I have found that too many rules does more harm than too few.

When I had a problem with Peter Millin’s posts, I advocated that we ignore his posts and I opposed any other actions against his being involved. I want him to contribute to LG despite our frequent opposing views, but I don’t want anyone to post inflammatory material as an act of revenge (as Millin admitted doing) so that’s why I said something. I hope this helps demonstrate what I hope for here: nearly invisible moderators, diverse points of view welcomed, and the first level of policing to come from the village of people who use LG.

Making sure that everyone follows the rules would require heavy moderator involvement. Using the apt analogy of U.S. courts, we have an overbusy court system because so many people don’t understand the rules and so many more don’t follow them. There is no system to ensure people understand and follow the rules. However, everyone’s benevolent involvement in LG will inspire each other to do so. I think that the LG community does well in this regard, and there is always room for improvement.

I’d like to hear more about your idea of a system that has the author categorize their comments. I like the idea already if there’s not too much burden on the author.

I have used CraigsList’s “flag” feature for tone, never substance. This model works if LG’s readers flag offensive posts for tone (if no one is bothered, no one will flag). When a post is flagged, the moderator will review it for a violation of LG posting policy, to guard against mistaken or malicious flagging. This approach would keep a good distance from allegations or misunderstandings of censorship, because a post would not be removed unless LG’s readers and moderator(s) find it offensive rather than moderator(s) alone.

And banishing posts to a “Misfit” thread is another method to ensure no one feels censored. It’s kin to putting the kids at the kids table, not kicking the kids out of the house.

We can make rules (and the ones you laid out Griff make sense to me). But, in the end, how do we make sure everyone understands the rules in the same way and follows them? That can get trickier and trickier.

I’ve been wondering lately if there is some way to engineer a system that leads people who want to comment through a series of steps that makes sure they add to the discussion in a way that keeps to the rules. The system could also categorize comments and separate them into different threads of conversation.

I think there is another aspect of this site, not yet discussed in your ethics thread, that calls for greater governance, or at least greater restraint. If this were just some guy’s blog, it wouldn’t matter so much, but this site aims to be a significant community forum.

That being the case, there are occasional times (not often, but often enough for it to be something of a pattern) when topics are started either with the purpose of being inflammatory to get a lively discussion going (such as the query of whether conservatives are welcome at Just Food), or with a question being lobbed out there about a local business or other entity with little or no apparent attempt to do a minimal fact-check beforehand, which can create a public relations issue for that organization to which they then have to devote time and energy, which often equate to money (and the public relations issue itself can certainly equate directly to loss of income or reputation), deciding how or whether to respond.

You sometimes behave as if you are sitting around a table at Blue Monday and simply gabbing among friends, but your words carry more widely and linger far longer. If you see one of LoGroNo’s roles as being a community watchdog, that’s fine, but don’t just speculate; know it to be your responsibility to do your homework first. I do believe it is an ethical issue, perhaps particularly so in tough economic times.

Relatedly, there are regular commentators out there who can be quick to seize upon a characterization of an issue and get opinionated and judgmental about it without having any more information on the topic than you have provided. Thus, an issue can balloon quickly. Eventually it usually sorts itself out, but not without some unnecessary angst.

I think Craigslist’s rules are fine but they’re not adequate for what I’m trying to create here. Having a higher standard for how one participates is not censoring.

I have become a fan of the CraigsList-style flagging of offensive posts, moderator review, and if the moderator deems it appropriate based on published criteria, the offensive post gets removed to an Isle of Misfits section. This way, the readers judge what is and isn’t offensive, the moderator is the fail safe, and ‘censored’ posts are still readable apart from the conversation.

Griff, “Freedom of Speech for the Public” is an ethical issue if LG is to be a town square for public participation. The more LG is used for locals to share ideas about politics and governance, the more important and *ethical* it is not to censor.

But I don’t think ‘freedom of speech for the public’ falls within the ethics arena. I see it more as a policy issue.

Some offending comments I let stand and make a moderator-type observation about them. Others that I think are destructive or that have more of a problematic history with the author, I remove and publicly explain.

It’s important to me that we have a culture of inquiry and civil discourse here. That trumps people’s desire to have a platform for their views, even after they express them.

• My initial heroin blog post, for example, in which I quoted from a newspaper story and got confirmation from the police chief… and got the headline wrong.
• My comment that according to an unnamed media person I spoke to, Lee Lansing was visibly intoxicated before a council meeting
  

So Ken/Jane/John, although I would say that we’re primarily a commentary source, we still need some guidelines on how we mix in the facts.

Interesting topic. Shouldn’t we make a distinction between the content of Locally Grown and a site which reports hard news? Thus, how relevant would the code of ethics you’ve referred to be for this site?

Griff- How about this revision for rule #2? Freedom to express your perception and opinion about a subject without being personally attacked. Afterall, none of us has “all the sides” of any subject, and Kiffi correctly points out the phenominum of “perceived truth.” Am I understanding your concept correctly?

I think that the “present all sides” dictum results in a lot of publicity for nonsense. But I can decide what the nonsense is, I don’t need someone to tell me UNLESS the topic is really technical or arcane.

Since LG is not, in my mind, a reporting source, I’d prefer it continue as a commentary source. If you sometimes report things before you comment, so be it.

Keep it personal and human.