Once again, a vocal joeuser has been blacklisted by another vocal user.

And once again, the "complaint blog" is logged.

In the several months I have been on JU, I have seen this happen regularly as part of the life cycle of the community. When one blacklists another, the other feels obligated to press their "free speech" rights in the hope that public opinion will get them removed from the blacklist.

Apparently, they misunderstand the purpose of the blogs. This blog is MY journal, it's MY thoughts, it's MY opinions.

In short, think of it as an internet apartment building. Brad is the owner and the super, and he makes the rules for the community. Those rules are listed in the TOS, which you agreed to when you registered for JU, WC, or whichever site you are accessing these forums from. If you didn't read them, perhaps you should. Not reading terms of service is akin to signing a contract without reading the fine print.

Anyway, back to my analogy. Within the building, each of us has our own apartment. We are free to select who comes and goes, and free to disallow comments from someone else for any reason. Now, most of us are rational and apply some sort of standard. While I admit my standards are prone to emotional response, I usually quickly restore someone if I blacklisted in haste. But, perusing my blacklist, every one of the blacklisted individuals is on the list for one or more of the following reasons:

• Intentional, malicious deception
• Personal and or/off topic attacks on thread responses
• Repeatedly ignoring my requests to discuss things in a civil, respectful manner

While I don't need to justify my blacklist, I do feel a certain obligation to do so in light of some individuals' protests that my blacklisting them stifles their free speech. If you peruse my article responses, I have let a GOOD NUMBER of dissenting views remain; in fact, the number of responses I have deleted over my time here is rather small (I have felt like deleting a LOT more, believe me). Usually, if the response is on topic and devoid of personal attacks, it will remain, no matter how controversial I may view it.

But even that's not the point. Back to the analogy; my blog is my apartment. I do have a right to relax in "my space" free of personal, off topic attacks, just as you do. While I support constitutional free speech (and even have spoken up for blacklisted individuals, even though I recognize that it's Brad's decision to make), I also support my right to not have my threads hijacked by BS. And I will continue to exercise that right.

So, in other words, if you want to play nice (or even not play nice, but keep it on topic), you don't have to worry about my blacklist rules.