This is a highly unusual situation, but in the interest of remaining transparent and open about our experiences we will address this publicly.
It has come to our attention that someone has begun a rumor about Citizen Wausau. The implication is that while we’re only in our second week of publication, we’re already on the censorship bandwagon. You can imagine why this is a headache.
Here’s the deal, we “rejected” one post. That person denied speaking to anyone other than us about it, but now we have an independent third party addressing us about it – and – our editor resigned.
“Why was the article rejected,” you ask? Good question.
The article technically wasn’t rejected. The article in question was three sentences, and two hyperlinks. They were great sentences, and cool links, but Dino asked the author to reconsider it (we can’t really control Dino by the way, he is totally running amok, we just throw Vegan Meatloaf at him once or twice a day, and hope he stops yelling…he yells a lot. We can’t tell if he just has a loud voice, or if he is angry.)
As our editorial policy states, “Personal voices expressing personal stories to readers in their community. You, talking to me, about what you have seen, what you want to see, and what you hope will come along.”
Dino asked the author to expound on their idea, not just post the few lines without connecting the reader to a valid emotion or idea. We all felt it was inappropriate to allow such a short post because it would set a precedent for others to feel it was alright to contribute what would slowly turn into a blog that was merely a bunch of links, of which there are already plenty.
The author chose to not pursue publishing the post. We went back, and Dino offered to amend an Editor’s note to explain the significance as to what was being posted, and why. He even went so far as to show the poster the Editor’s note in advance. The author made a choice.
For the record, we have a process where more than one person has to be involved in the approval or rejection of a post. With three founders, we think that we represent fairness the best way we can. Initially Dino reads all of it, and has initial discussions with posters, but after that he talks to Andy and I about everything on the site. We totally would not give the big loveable monkey too much rope with which to hang himself. We are in this together!
It led to some interesting discussions over the two days between the author and myself and Dino. The question of censorship, the question of what is and what is not an open forum. I tend to err on the side of trying to find inclusive paths. Dino, on the other hand, just wants the posts to be what we had envisioned…discussion. You can see from his posts he is fond of words, prosody, the brought forth idea (he worships Aaron Sorkin after all). At the same time, Dino is really Dino. A sort of acquired taste, a polarizing figure, a real rabble rouser. We’re not sure everyone is going to like him, as often we’re pretty sure that we don’t like him, but over the past few years his work in this sort of thing is pretty public and pretty successful. WNRB, his inciting the Wausaublog, and his bringing me the Citizen Wausau idea and yelling at me until I got it done.
So for all you new people we ask, if we can talk Dino into coming back, to understand that his is a different way. Not always loving and sensitive, but there is no one we would rather go to war with. Dino has proven to all of us, on more than one occasion that he would literally walk into traffic to defend us, to avenge us, to make sure that our ideas and projects are safe. We have watched Dino essentially put himself on the line for his principals and lose giant fights, and lose things he cares deeply about, but he was standing up for what he believed in, and would not really change (he’s practically a Dixie Chick in that way). Even if he has nothing at stake, he is more than willing to take a literal punch in the face, or a metaphorical boot to the side. We know that he is going to be that guy for you, because of his love for the project, and the idea of giving voice to you all.
So we’re sorry that the poster felt slighted. We never meant for it to happen. We have tried to remedy this situation, and we think by being open and honest about it with all of you, we are doing a better thing than by not being transparent. We want you to understand that the “rejection” of this post was an issue of quality(we wanted to expand your idea of the situation), not subject matter.
We’re not really sure about Dino, or his return. His feelings were really hurt by this incident, on a personal level. We heard that he went home, and rented a movie about Newfoundland, and got some Vegan food (seriously, how can a guy big like that be a vegetarian? It makes no sense) and sat in his chair. Other than that, we are hoping to hear from him, as we asked him to reconsider his resigning.
What do you think?
