From time to time, we bloggers are challenged.  We are confronted with the Internet equivalent of a vandal, or an abuser.  It is at these times that we are forced to decide where the right to free speech is abridged.  Now I am not talking about Dave Burris banning Mike Protack (or his router, for that matter), nor Dana Garrett banning Nancy Willing from his site.  I do not believe in that pettiness.

My fine line for banning a commenter was crossed today by a poster that went by a variety of names.  What pushed me over the edge was that the poster stole Truth Teller’s handle.  There are many ways that I could tell that this was the case, but the evidence was quite conclusive.  I warned this poster that another violation would result in a ban, which I did a few minutes later.

Generally, I like to let trolls burn themselves out.  I like to let flame wars escalate and die on their own.  It is a community and we can disagree and we can be disagreeable.  Some of my favorite moments are when Feroce gets hot and heavy with someone in the comments.  So I have a few evolving rules that I’d like to throw out there.

• I don’t mind you calling someone lickspittle, as long as it is in context.
• I don’t mind you using one-liners (but I prefer them to be funny).
• Flame wars are welcome, provided there is no real-world violence likely.
• Being an asshole is your prerogative, recognizing you as one is the prerogative of the rest of us.
• You may not steal someone’s identity.  Even our anon is pretty much the same guy.  The only exception here is Tom Carper.  Anyone may impersonate Tom Carper.  Anything else and you risk banning.
• Do not post with the sole intention to degrade another member of our community, you will be warned then banned.
• Do not  use abusive language (at management’s discretion) you will be warned then banned.
• Attempting to drag any DelawareLiberal contributor or commenter’s real life into the blog-world will not end well for you.

As I said, these rules are evolving, but if you get marked as spam because of excessive links in your post and/or you think you have been banned, you probably haven’t.  We will post your comment as soon as we get done with our meeting with the boss and get back to goofing off at work.  We do truly appreciate the debate, discussion and ideas that get kicked around here and want that to be as unfettered as possible.

Thanks for being a part of the DelawareLiberal.Net community.