The Commonty - space for all

Dear Commonty readers - we have received some concerned comments about the post 'Moving On Up'. This is always tricky territory when issues of free speech and censorship come up. In the past the Commonty has only once had cause to remove one single comment (after giving the author 24 hours to justify what they were saying). In this current instance, we have consulted with a few folk and feel the best course of action is to remove the entire post and all the comments from the blog. The reason for this is that there is a string of 'anonymous' commenting that refers to specific individuals.

We would like to sincerely apologise to anyone who may have had cause to take offence at any comments posted on this blog. 

We are really proud of this blog and passionate about the importance of a free and independent space for opinion, debate and inquiry - but always the human rights of individuals to be treated fairly must be weighed against issues of free speech (Jeezo - this is beginning to sound like the BBC!)

For those unfamiliar with how The Commonty works - we have always allowed anonymous comments, because, when we started, we experienced an unfamiliarity amongst our readership with 'blogging' and it proved  a way that people felt able to contribute to the chat. In many instances folk have got a bit irritated by 'anony-mouses' but generally speaking we think that the values of having opinions expressed has outweighed the problems they may have caused.

for more on 'commenting on The Commonty' - see here

If people would like to revisit that policy then please let us know


all the very best

The Commonty