Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Personal Information And Comment Moderation

Recently, someone using the name "Anonymous" had posted the personal information for a person who they believed to be an author on this site in the comment portion of a recent post.  They had included a full name and mailing address and nothing more.  Obviously this person intended on making such post as an intimidation tactic - we have seen this before with Danville and Lynchburg Tea Party activists mistakenly posting Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother address online, which resulted in the severing of Perriello's brother's gas line at his home.

Obviously The Midnight Review had struck a chord with this individual, but instead of coming to this site to offer honest debate and differing opinions, they had instead decided to resort to radical activism to try and threaten the authors of this site to cease and desist - much like the baseless legal threats delivered to this site nearly 4 months ago by conservative activist and blogger John Smithson, who claimed this site was plagiarizing his similarly named blog.

The Midnight Review is aware of who left the anonymous comment, but unlike the individual, will not stoop down to that level - we will not publish this person's name, address, or phone number - and will continue to publish the commentary on politics and current events that we have become known for in our year of existence, minus the personal information.

Sure we could post articles making personal attacks and threats, but what good would that accomplish?

This site will continue to publish other people's comments no matter the politics or personal opinions of the commenter, and will only delete comments should they be deemed offensive or threatening.  We encourage differing views to be presented for the purpose of engaging in intellectual debate and will not permit others to derail the conversation because their level of immaturity does not allow them to articulate themselves in an intelligent manner.

Thank you for all the wonderful commenters out there who have contributed to the debate over the past year and we look forward to continuing in future discussions.

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