Two sentences were deleted from the above post because in our judgment they contained overly personal criticisms.

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:
Web Link and
http://enochchoi.vox.com

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.

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?