"Friends" of PA Jr. Museum Around Town, posted by Harriet Wilson, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Jul 5, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Thanks for the article on the assorted Friends groups that are intended to support various Palo Alto entities. I've got my fingers crossed that the PA Jr. Museum can recover, now that the recent president of the Friends of the museum has resigned to run for a state office. Why has this non-Palo Altan been allowed to have such an influence on our beloved institution?? [Portion deleted by Palo Alto Online] Thank goodness her desire to privatize the museum and raze the building didn't come to fruition. [Portion deleted by Palo Alto Online] Is there a way that residents can donate directly to the City to support programs we love? These Friends groups _look_ like an easy and appropriate way to channel money, but it's obvious that it doesn't always work the ways it's intended, and it's not clear that the governing members of the Friends groups are held accountable to their donors. H.W.
Posted by enoch choi, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Jul 6, 2006 at 9:37 am
Isn't this the point of citizen journalism? If contributors here want to write their thoughts, unedited, I'd suggest you get your own weblog where your writing will not be deleted. That's what I do:
Posted by Bill Johnson, publisher of the Palo Alto Weekly, on Jul 6, 2006 at 2:16 pm Bill Johnson is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online
Enoch,
Thanks for your participation on Town Square and your comments about our removal of a couple of lines from Harriet Wilson's post. I think you would agree that it would be irresponsible of us to allow any post on our site, no matter what was said. A person is free to make any statements they want on their own blog site, but if they want to share it with the community on Palo Alto Online they must accept the groundrules we establish.
For better or worse, we've decided that we will remove comments that are personal attacks or characterizations. We'll provide a little more latitude for comments on elected officials, but our goal is to create an environment where all residents feel safe in posting their views without fear that they might personally be attacked. If people stick to respectful comments it will encourage more people to participate.
To me, the point of "citizen journalism" is not to create an outlet for personal criticisms of other community members, it's to empower the community to share their views with a very large audience in as constructive a way as possible. But this is a work-in-progress and we're all learning as we go. You are a veteran blogger and I value your thoughts on how we best draw the line in order to keep this community site a thoughtful gathering place.
View in an RSS Reader
E-mail this topic.
Print this topic.
