CLARIFICATION ON GUIDELINES FOR WEBSITE AND FACEBOOK PAGE Part MMM

BHCW will post ALL endorsements on the Private and Public Page.  That does not mean I or whoever is posting endorses that candidate.

BHCW believes it is essential for every resident to have a say in this and every election.  BHCW will not hide or shield people who come to our site from information we may disagree with. Elections should allow for all perspectives. Sometimes people who are terrible at public office win. If you don’t want them to win, then send us an article explaining why and I promise we will publish it as long as it meets our terms and conditions.  

Consider getting involved instead of trying to silence other people or complaining that someone who disagrees with you made an effort to write something.

BHCW is completely ok with you pointing out why someone is doing a terrible or excellent job in public office in your articles and posts – as long as they aren’t personal attacks.

Calling a Candidate a horrible and tragic choice for the position is fine. Calling a Candidate a terrible or tragic person is not allowed. Pointing out facts that are uncomfortable about a government official’s actions in office, their decisions in office and drawing reasonable conclusions about fitness for the role is perfectly acceptable. Speaking about their character, private lives, families, and potential medical conditions are not.

We do not exist to cancel out the unfairness of other sites. We do exist to provide all the information residents and town leaders want to share about local government entities.

So “this local media outlet isn’t publishing our articles; why we are posting theirs”? is not something I honestly want to hear anymore. We aren’t anyone else.  

We have discretion over what we choose to publish, which has everything to do with the article’s quality and nothing to do with the opinion it posits. On a slow day, a garbage article might make it through as long as it is fact-based. During the election, when everyone posts three million things every 30 minutes – the chances of a weak article making it through is slim – post it on the Facebook page.

If an endorsement was already published on another outlet, you can certainly submit it to the site, but if we already posted it on the public page from that other outlet, we are not posting it there again. The same goes if it’s the other way around.

Residents not in public office are OFF LIMITS on posts and articles. No exceptions to this rule.

Sometimes we may make a mistake – there are two ways you can point it out:

Write a dramatic post about how a mistake, error, or moderator simply not seeing something is evidence that BHCW is terrible, mourn humanity’s fate, then rage quit the group…

or 

Just point it out with something like the report feature on Facebook.

Lastly, for the four billionth time, we do not allow anonymous articles or posts. 

To sum it up,  just stick to the facts as much as you can- connect your opinions to those facts- make sure it’s about a person’s job or policy decisions in office- and your content will be fine.

Candidates and Government Officials – if you send us a takedown request for an article that does not violate our terms, we will publish your request. We will NOT take down the article simply because YOU think it’s inaccurate.  We will not even entertain a takedown request if it is not from the public official the article is about – we don’t speak to proxies.

For example, the whole thing that happened between Laura Kap and you know who – that’s what will happen. So instead of trying to harass us to take it down, make your argument public – point out why it’s wrong or point out that you could have made a better decision.

This is America – people have a right to disagree with government officials about the decisions they make in public office. If you don’t believe that PLEASE let us know so we can write about your ridiculous beliefs.

Related Articles/Pages:

How to Publish an Article

Terms and Conditions

BHCW POSITION STATEMENT ON ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS