Election season is warming up, and it’s a good time to revisit this site’s general policy on comments.
Unlike many other sites, iLind.net still allows anonymous comments. It isn’t necessary to register and disclose your identity in order to comment.
By and large, this works well. But campaign season seems to draw more frequent comments that try to introduce personal smears or the spread of unsubstantiated rumors or allegations.
In these cases, I do reserve the right to moderate, edit, or reject comments. Sometimes I’ll cut off a comment thread when incivility escalates in the exchange of flaming comments.
The rules aren’t hard and fast, but I try to be fair about it.
If you provide a working email address, I will try to let you know of any concerns and invite you to modify your comment. But if your comment is posted anonymously, this isn’t an option, and I will edit or delete as seems appropriate.
When there are repeated attempts to repost the same material that I’ve already edited (some people just don’t want to take “no” for an answer), I have on occasion taken the next step and blocked the IP address from access. This has happened only rarely, but it has happened.
Oh, and don’t think that attacking me personally for moderating your comments will get you very far. The delete button is easy for me to hit.
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Great policy. You are the editor and owner. Anonymity can be good for conversation with wise moderation.
I realize each time I review the “Ian blog” I am sitting in “your home.”
There are times I do not alway agree with conclusion as a N-Isle guy.
That’s understandable because so many Oahu folks are immune to Maui or Big Island or Kauai, or do not care.
Mainly I think comments under assumed names diminish their input their comments. I may disagree with those are honest enough to reveal their real identity. They carry greater weight.
Totally understand your point about credibility, Hugh. However, some of us cannot share our observations other than under pseudonyms because of who we are, where we work, etc.
For what it’s worth, Ian and Derrick DePledge know exactly who I am and I have side conversations and/or provide info to each. I trust them with my identity and that info because of their journalist’s First Amendment privilege, even if Clayton Hee did kill off the statutory one.
Once in a while I have comments blocked. That is ok with me. Sometimes I go overboard — and that is probably, in part, because I am making an anonymous post.
I’m not able to make my comments visible on Civil Beat so I’ll take advantage of the opportunity Ian provides to anonymous posters by commenting here in response to other comments made to his recent Hawaii Monitor column (http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2014/04/30/21945-hawaii-monitor-mufis-reemergence-shows-guts-and-ego/).
This is in response to the contention that Mufi bears no responsibility for the pumping of 48 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Ala Wai in 2006 when a force main failed during a period of very heavy rain.
First, an excerpt:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Apr/05/ln/FP604050345.html
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“The city was warned two years ago that the pressurized sewer line that burst March 24 and sent a record amount of raw sewage into the Ala Wai Canal was on a list of ‘very critical’ sewer lines that should be considered for replacement, according to a report obtained by The Advertiser.
An October 2004 report by city consultant Fukunaga & Assoc. Inc. described the Beach Walk pressurized line, or force main, as ‘extremely critical, (with) high flows, susceptible to corrosion, very old, (with) limited contingency provisions.’
The Beach Walk force main was among seven deemed in ‘very critical’ condition. The report recommended that a backup line be created for that major sewer line, which handles wastewater from Waikiki, Mo’ili’ili and Manoa.”
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To put it all together, the article also reminds us that “Hannemann took office in January 2005,” which means that his administration had more than a year to respond to the findings of the October 2004 Fukunaga report that used the words “extremely critical” in its assessment of the Waikiki force main’s condition, before it failed on March 24, 2006.
It is true that timely maintenance and upgrades while in the stages of wear that precede “extremely critical” may have prevented the force main from ever nearing catastrophic failure, so there is blame to go around. But the fact remains that once the situation was identified as having reached the point where disaster was impending, two mayors had the opportunity to attempt to address the problem. One mayor had 2 months to deal with the “extremely critical” problem; the other had a year and two months.
After pumping 48 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Ala Wai , the city was able to install some sort of temporary bypass or backup to mitigate the problem until a more permanent solution could be decided on. That temporary solution took about 4 months to implement.
Assuming 4 months is about as fast as a temporary solution could be constructed, I would observe that, while two mayors had the opportunity to attempt to address the sewage line problem once it was identified as “extremely critical,” only one had the time needed to do so successfully. Unfortunately, he didn’t.