We the admin and contributor team at Winds of Change.NET value you, our regular readers and commenters. Together we make Winds what it is: one of the best places in the blogosphere for serious, thoughtful and challenging discussion of important issues and trends. Our Comments Policy is all about helping to keep it that way, and we try to apply it wisely.
Where there is dialogue, there are usually differences of opinion. The Winds of Change.NET team spans a range of political stances... and so do our readers and commenters. When the issues being discussed are important, it's no surprise that emotions can run high.
Passion is both appropriate and welcome here. What is not acceptable is language that calls for lining journalists up and shooting them or leftists "swinging off lampposts". So we held a Marshals Meeting. Then we took action.
Winds of Change.NET's Deadwood Marshals have jointly decided that Raymond's use of such language has crossed an uncrossable line into incitement. As of a few minutes ago, Raymond has been banned from commenting at Winds of Change.
The decision to take this step was echoed, for various reasons, by every one of our Marshals - and it did not come out of the blue. It came to pass after a number of comment deletions over several months, and extensive back-channel efforts by the Winds team and the Marshals. Extensive efforts have been made to bring his contributions into line with Winds comments policy, and with our vision of a site where all opinions are invited and quality discussion is maintained.
It's rare indeed for us to ban a Winds regular; but in this case Raymond has left us no choice other than to do so, or to be complicit in this behavior.
[Edited by Winds founder and team leader Joe Katzman in response to reader questions & input, June 25/05]