Thanks so much for the kind words (“community guru”… makes me blush ). It means a lot to me. I really appreciate you picking up the book, as well, and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

I think that the decision is reasonable. You and I both know that freedom of speech has no place on any professionally run community or website because freedom of speech means EVERYTHING. It’s not practical.

The important thing is to cultivate the proper community that fits within whatever your looking to accomplish or what your brand is. Do you want a website where people can’t feel safe browsing from work or around their family? There is no right answer there, just what your audience is. If so, there are things you’ll need to remove. Do you want a website that is riddled with personal attacks and bitter, nasty arguments? Again, no right answer, but whatever you decide will require maintenance.

As the Editor of the Leicester Mercury rightly points out, you can’t use resources you don’t have. If you don’t have the ability (whether financially or time wise) to properly manage a comments area, it’s better not to have one at all. That’s a wise choice and a sign of taking the responsibility seriously, rather than just trying to generate as many pageviews as you can and cash the check.

But that’s part of the issue, isn’t it? Most people don’t understand or have an idea of the responsibility and the commitment it takes to properly run a blog comment area, or forums, or some other form of social media that has to be managed. A lot of people think it’s the proverbial, stereotypical kid in their parents basement removing comments they don’t agree with. (As an aside, the “kid in the basement” can sometimes do a better job than anyone else – I was that kid!) They think of themselves as on the side of “right,” when they couldn’t be more wrong.

They can’t get past “OMG, THEY REMOVED MY COMMENT. I AM SOOOOOOOOOOO ANGRY. THEY HAVE INFRINGED UPON MY RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER I WANT, WHEREVER I WANT, ABOUT WHOEVER I WANT ON THEIR PRIVATE OWNED WEBSITE. GRRRRRRRRRRR. I’LL SUE! I’LL WRITE LETTERS!” long enough to understand that someone is actually thinking about these things, not doing it willy nilly, and actually cares and is trying and has a responsibility, not to some angry readers, but to all, and to those who you write about, the people who work at the publication, the people who pay the bills and others and balancing that responsibility is a challenge.

Best of luck. If I can help or provide any advice, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Patrick