let me make it quite clear that I am not here to discuss and/or defend every decision made by the moderating team at 911Blogger, as that would require me to revisit all the decisions others have made in the past, which I think any reasonable person would agree is far too onerous a task to undertake.

That said, let me first say that I regret very much that that particular blog was posted in the way it was at the time it was because it unnecessarily inflamed an already contentious situation. Unfortunately, I was not fast enough to address the issue before someone else did and we just have to deal with it and move forward, as we do with everything in life.

More specifically, I would say that the bulk of your post was generally off-topic (the topic being "Should individuals that use sockpuppets be tolerated"), was more a laundry list of complaints directed at more than one individual, was unnecessarily argumentative, included personal attacks and attacks against the site. Any one of these reasons is sufficient to put the comment in moderation.

I am not blind to the irony (some might say hypocrisy) here (please see my first statement above, but we have to draw the line somewhere and we don't allow full blown flame wars. [I noticed someone had a very short stay here recently, so the moderators here have standards and are "controlling" things to a certain degree, which I hope everyone agrees is their right.]

Clearly, there is a lot of anger and frustration as certain issues have not been addressed adequately nor has there been the kind of transparency regarding some decisions that I would've liked. I understand and accept the reasons for some of this and part of why I've decided to be more fully engaged at 911blogger and start a dialogue here is to hopefully address these issues and come to an understanding that works for most of us (it's impossible to make everyone happy and I'm not going to try to do that, that is just part of the human condition).

Going forward I would encourage everyone who has a comment that is not published to contact me directly through the site to see what can be done. However, I do have a life outside of 9/11 and 911blogger, so don't abuse the process and if you do, don't expect a reply (i.e. if you repeatedly ask about comments that are clearly over the line).

We are in the process of clarifying and revising the site rules. Hopefully, this will assist everyone in using the site and better understanding how it is moderated.

I hope that was an adequate answer.

Regards,

John