RECENT COMMENTS
A minor editorial decision
Comments on a particular thread have been unpublished.
The post in question is about a neighborhood boy that accidentally killed himself playing with a gun. His friends have on&off found the post via google, and have posted their remembrences and shout-outs.
I’m glad that the kids that have found Jeremy’s page have some kind of outlet. When they google their friend’s name or “church hill” and find the site, this is another connection between some of the different worlds going on around here.
Some folks, all of whom I think are in the neighborhood voluntarily (so to speak…), have posted what seem to me to cynical and snarky comments about the kids’ grammer and choice of expression. This bugged the shit out of me, so I unpublished their comments. I’m not trying to make this site all that PC, but felt like I had to make this correction.
What do you think?
TAGGED: editorial
It’s your site, dude, up to you whether you want it jerk-free or not.
It’s your sandbox, so you can choose who you wish to play in it.
Be careful about your censorship. You’re trying to be a journalist on this site without really being one.
Like most bloggers, you’ve created your own little world. In doing so, you also become the judge and the jury.
I agree with you John. I saw some of the comments before you deleted them, and the people who left the “snarky” posts shouldn’t look down on people just because their grammar is bad or they are from a culture they don’t understand. And if they do want to comment on that sort of thing, that is fine. But a thread on a boy that was killed is certainly not the place.
John, ultimately the decision about what appears on CHPN is yours and you are right to do what you deem necessary and good for the site. I appreciate that. However, we live in a violent and cynical world…and our neighborhood and city are only a small part of that big mix. You’ve left worse in place.
I usually leave it to the community (or myself) to rebut — within the comments — people who are being idiots.
I have shut down comments on a couple of occasions after people made some racist remarks or really personal attacks. I left the final offending comment up though. I don’t have a problem ending a conversation, but it does bug me to remove bits and pieces from a conversation. It’s like modifying history or something ; )
actually, you didn’t even need to let us know you were deleting the lame comments. it would have been fine to just quietly cut them loose without any notice. that’s the great thing about blogs. there are no rules. you, as the moderator, get to determine what you want on them. perhaps the lame commentors will start their own blogs to make fun of kids who have lost friends, instead of using someone else’s.
Joe,
The whole point of posting this “decision” is to create controversy, or to put it in a more PC way, a discussion. Look at this site. What threads gets the most comments?
To keep people looking at this site, the blogger has to throw in some hot stuff now and again in order for this blog to survive.
There are rules on blogs. The blogger makes the rules. The problem I have with bloggers is that they create controversy and then when they don’t like what it produces they back down or censor what they don’t like. You can’t have it both ways.
John,
” in the neighborhood voluntarily (so to speak…),” Excuse me? You get mad about the racial and cultural division in our neighboorhood, yet you perpetuate the division with that comment.
There are deep wounds in this neighborhood, and a discussion about what divides us are going to be hurtful and heated sometimes. In order to get to some mutual understanding, I think the dirty laudry needs to be aired.
Nobody is willing to have a frank, and yes, maybe uncomfortable conversation about cultural differences. This may not be the forum, but it’s got to start happening somewhere.
Thanks for the feedback, y’all. I put this out for discussion because I really don’t want this to just be my sandbox. The now 2 or 3 times that I’ve deleted a comment, I’ve either contacted the commentor personally or now publicly to state why.
I’d love to see a frank discussion of cultural differences, but that is not what that thread was generating.
In my ‘voluntarily’ aside, rather than seeking to create any division, I was trying to remind us all that kids are born to their life. Let’s not hold that against them. As adults of whatever backgroud and opportunity, we have the freedom and experience to decide the situations that surround us — we are all here voluntarily. While a sixteen-year-old should know better than to play with a loaded gun, the average kid at that age can only get so far past their upbringing.
Neighbor, this is not a discussion about what hurtful or heated. Nor a discussion about any discussion about the great racial or economic divide. These comments were left for a purpose that has worn out its welcome. While I am sorry about the untimely death of the youth, he is buried and we, too, should burry the posting. This forum, and stop me if I’m wrong John, was started or became a way for neighbors to pass ideas. It’s also great for getting information that is not captured by the mass media of Richmond.
Additionally, I think leaving the comments there do more to perpetuate the sterotypes of a certain population than to dispel them.
Thanks for your time.
I think you’ve complettely missed my point. FYI, I didn’t leave those comments, nor do I condone them, but it’s staring us all in the face. Even if the thread was not “meant” to generate certain comments, they will. Are we to sweep it under the carpet?
Additionally, I think this site can serve as a good starting point for neighborhood involvment by providing information to meetings and events. However, all the clean-ups and meetings and events that I go to, I always wonder why all the people who post on this site with opinions about how to change the community are never there. Yes, I know that some of you are, but very few.
Good point and I did miss that. My take is that the particular thread in question, as an ongoing eulogy of sorts, seems like a tacky place to get into it. We seem to have been magically offered a less encumbered opportunity, though.
all the clean-ups and meetings and events…
I’ve wondered, too, on how to encourage better turn-out at these types of things.
Some people just don’t have the stomach for the meetings is all. From who I know is whom in real life and on this site, we have a fair percentage of commentors that are pretty involved in their own way in the community. In addition to yourself, there were at least 4 other chpn commentors at the last 7th Dist. Round Table (not counting the Burtons). I first met another pseudonomous commenter from above at one of Ms.McQuinn’s district meetings & I know that they are making a difference. Ann from above is kicking ass on ABC violators and holding down a rough corner. And these are just some of the regulars on this particular post…
There are many of us that cannot make many of the meetings and other functions, make the community a better place every day.
Oops…… forgot the but before make in the above relpy. Please excuse my poor grammar.
Community Meetings aren’t for everyone. I get more accomplished on my own by working directly with the 1st Precinct – and less frusterated. Our particular area is pretty tightly knit and when we identify a problem, we act as a group instinctively. There are quite a few of us busting our humps against the criminal elements in our communities – we are just in very small groups that move fast because it works for us. Personally, I’d rather be out running the streets and targeting problems than sitting in a lengthy meeting where no one can agree on how to go about tackling an issue. I understand that meeting are beneficial for some though.
I agree with Kristen about the effectiveness of small groups. One such group in my neighborhood successfully fought issuance of an un-restricted ABC license to a troublesome convenience store and has periodic face-to-face visits with 1st Precinct command staff about local problems. Small groups like this are in consensus about what needs to be addressed right from the time a problem is identified….which makes acting on the problem something that can be tackled without delay.