Saturday, November 1, 2008

Comment Guidelines

Aberdeener.com is dedicated to promoting dialogue about improving our community. Comments that are contrary to that goal run the risk of being deleted. Though I retain absolute discretion to retain or remove any comment, I will generally follow the below guidelines. Sometimes, a comment may fall in a gray area and I will need to consider other factors such as context. However, any comment that doesn’t run afoul of the following guidelines should be permitted.

The following are examples of unwanted comments:

  • Offensive Language – I realize that many people use this blog as a venue to vent their anger, so I’ve been extremely lenient regarding vulgarity but I don’t like it. I won’t extend that same courtesy to other language that would be inappropriate in polite company.
  • Incendiary Language – Any language inciting violence will not be tolerated and may instigate police action.
  • Intimidation – My goal isn’t to be right but to find the right answer. I don’t attack people posting comments and I discourage others from doing so. We don’t convince people of our viewpoints through name calling or demonstrate our position’s superiority by scaring others from voicing their opinions. If we’re ever going to improve our community, we need to engage as many people as we can and work together towards our mutual benefit. I will therefore begin removing those comments that are intended to intimidate and silence others. (However, anonymous comments may not warrant the same protection since anonymity already shields the speaker to a certain extent.)
  • Attacks on Non-Public Individuals – All public persons are fair game. Personal attacks on private people are not.
  • Graffiti – Irrelevant comments intended to diminish this blog or interrupt the dialogue will be deleted.
  • Denigration - Denigrating someone's religion is unacceptable in any civil discussion and will not be tolerated.
One additional caveat – I am no longer the only person monitoring this blog. Therefore, inappropriate comments are more likely to disappear sooner rather than later.

Thanks to everyone who strives to make our community better for everyone else. >>> Read more!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your changes are much appreciated as recent all be it important and questioning topics has garnered much negative and outright prejudicial responses.

The importance of this blog, its topics and most importantly the highlighting of our local leadership is obviously needed and must be assured.

While the most recent topic and accusations of misconduct did garner an inordinate amount of posts the questions, accusations and more were never responded to.

Obviously the accusatory tone and number of anonymous postings did not bode well for the blog.

The steps you take today will hopefully make positive changes so that those who are highlighted, questioned, outed and more can still ignore our interest and discussions but who will not be able to use it against us.

Anonymous said...

U C is anonymous, get it through your head! I hate reading all of your comments stating that otherwise. Let's see, if I google U C brother what do I get nothing. I opened the phone book and low and behold, no U C brother. I checked voter registration and no U C brother listed. I went to the toen council meeting and guess what? NO U C Brother! YOU ARE ANONYMOUS! Get it through your head.

Anonymous said...

I hate to pile on, but I have to agree. UC, you are one of the first to start the name calling and disparaging comments about other posts who do not agree with you as do others who post on here regulary. To be honest, the only ones who we really know are Nsection Joe and Jsectio Ken.

The anonmous posts do lend to the conversation and are needed for this forum to have any dialogue.

I may not agree with everything written here, but I deem this forum essential TO GET THE WORD OUT THAT OUR TOWN HAS PROBLEMS THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED.

Thank you Aberdeener for your diligence and the time you spend. I may not agree with everything, but your information is very insighful and has shown me that THE CITIZENS OF THIS TOWN HAVE TO STAND UP and DO SOMETHING. START BY GOING TO COUNCIL MEETINGS....

Anonymous said...

Ditto.

Anonymous said...

I hope this is ok. On this Happy Election Day: Don't forget to vote! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkfBfR_wEF0&eurl=

Aberdeener said...

Here's my vote :)

Anonymous said...

we have to congratulate Johnny Short of Matawan high school's wrestling team. He won a region championship last week, the first in 12 years and only the 5th in school history and then placed 5th in the state at 125lbs.

Anonymous said...

Will our local election a little over a month away, I have noticed political signs popping up. Which is fine, but on TOWN property? I believe that town property belongs to the tax payers. If you want to place a sign on our own property, that is our right. Some of these signs are NOT the sandwich or "pin push" signs. But large wooden frame ones. In fact i would guess it would take two men to install them. Are town employees used to install these signs. Folks if you are in office...you still have to go by the rules!

Anonymous said...

As a mother of two small children in the district and a tax payer, I am extremely concerned about the circus act that has been going on concerning the privatization of our custodial staff. I am not convinced that all parties included have been working together to solve the problem. I attended the meeting on Monday( my first one) and was shocked at how all sides acted. The union heads didn't seem to want to budge and acted like martyrs. The board was smug and condecending. And this gets you know where! If you were fighting for the custodians,why was the proposal from them never seen by the board? Trying to strong arm the BOE will get you exactly what you did, letters of termination. This scares me because there will be strange people in my childrens school. If someone is from another country and working for the outsourced company, the backround checks would be incomplete. How do you know if they have committed any crimes against children in their country of origin? Do you check that extensively? I would like to know. You have put 32 custodians out of work to save $500,000. What about the maintenance department? The custodians seem to do everything the maintenance is suppose to. Are they licenced electricians? Plumbers? What are they worth to the district? They have substantial salaries as well. If cuts were made in this department could we not save some custodial jobs? My estimation is $1 million in salaries,over time,fuel for travel, and benefits. Since these employees have very little interaction with our children, I would not be upset if they had cuts. I'm not trying to "throw anyone under the bus" but my children know their custodians by name. It really hit me when my 7 year old asked "if Mr. Tom isn't at school anymore, who will open my lunch thermos?" I don't think any out sourced company comes with heart....

Anonymous said...

How is it that the letters that were received by the custodial staff were post marked March 22nd and the meeting concerning this matter was held on March 23rd?

Ashley's CURR 210 Blog said...

This BOE of this district is a hot mess! I understand that we are in horrible economic times, especially with all the budget cuts that Christie has implemented. But my problem is with Dr. Omaley. This man gets paid like $180,000 a year and for what? I would like to know why he gets paid all this money. I don't see anything that he did that qualifies him to make all this money. For the amount of money this man gets paid, every student in our district should be a genius! People of this community really need to get up ask why this guy gets paid an outragous salary but yet there is no money for education and their getting rid of teachers and outsourcing custodians. The BOE will take on a man and pay him all this money and he is not even a part of our community but they are willing to push out the custodians who have lived in this community for many years, most of their children have gone to these schools and they are the taxpayers. I can't wait till the day we can vote these board members out! Gambino and Rubino can stay though. They are the two board members who know the community and know what our students need.

Anonymous said...

Ashley Curr, you are correct! The BOE IS A HOT MESS!! However, Omalley's current salary is $189,000. He has no ties to this town and doesn't understand the history of our school and district. Also, rather than hiring within the district, a principal from Asbury Park was hired and paid $132k a year of money we do not have. Omalley's pay raise and the hiring of the principal angered the township of Aberdeen that they adopted a resolution condeming it.

Anonymous said...

Word on the streets is Officer Darryl will not be at MRHS effective September, 2010 – that another cop was given the position as SRO and that he was removed with out any explanation. Is this true? I'm a parent whose children speaks highly of and looks up to him. I am outraged!! If this is true, the nerve of this so called chief of police for allowing this to happen. I guess he's so worried about kissing up to the school board administration and looking good in their eyes that he cannot even do what’s right by his own police department.
John powers, you should be ashamed of yourself - what little bit of respect I had for you is completely gone. You are not a man; but a coward who is hiding behind your position.

Anonymous said...

Isn't it amazing that Chief Powers had a long time relationship with then the township financial officer Barbara Riddle and has used his township vehicle to drive over to her house and would be there for several hours while he was supposed to be working.
MISS USE OF TOWNSHIP VEHICLE AND TIME??
WE COULD WONDER HOW MANY PURCHASE ORDERS WERE APPROVED FOR THE POLICE DEPT WHILE THIS WAS GOING ON?