Censorship is ALWAYS helpful.

Thank you Lauren, let's have compassion for these children and keep them safe from any ugliness, they have a long road a head, we as a community will protect and continue to support them as long as we possibly can.

Hello, Michael.

If you consider attempts to slow the spread of rumors, halt speculation, and verify information before it's made public to be censorship, then sure. I'm guilty.

I stand by my decision to keep comments on Moderate. I appreciate your contributions to the site, and ask that you respect my decision and conduct yourself accordingly.

Thank you,
Lauren Traut
Associate Regional Editor

I have had very little respect for the media for a long time, until I met you two summers ago. I was very impressed with you and now, again, with the handling of this tragic situation. We have been friends of the family for 20+ years and have felt sick at heart over what has transpired. We greatly appreciate the empathetic handling of the news and comments by you and the Patch. Sincerely, Gail Burkdoll

Gail, I consider it a large part of my role as a community journalist. Please extend my sympathies to the family.

Lauren, your job as a reporter is to report the news, not censor reactions to the news. Almost every post on this site deals in speculation, rumor or misinformation from the public. Yet you invite us to post, then decide to censor. I am not advocating people be mean to anyone, but who becomes the arbiter of what is fit to post? You may censor a post that 98% of agree with, yet maybe you or your moderators do not agree; is that really the right approach? I see posts in this thread that have this man guilty because of "gut feelings" yet you allow those posts, that is speculation since he has not been convicted. Do you see my point? Let people post what they want and let the public decide what they believe, they are going to believe what they want anyway.

Yeah, Michael M., her job is to report the news. She does that. She's also not obligated or mandated by you to have an open comment section. Chicago Tribune does it all the time. There's stories in the Tribune where there's no comments allowed.

She and the editors are the arbiter of what's fit to post. It's their playground; their rules. This isn't YOUR paper. Start your own site or blog instead.

If they do not want post or comment then they can turn it off. By leaving it open to comment they are inviting the comments. Their job is not to censor those comments. I certainly did not mandate they have the comments turned on, they chose that themselves. Just like if I blog, I can choose to turn off the comments or leave them on. It doesn't make sense to allow comments and then censor them or remove them.

Michael,

This will be my final response on this topic. I am moderating the comments based on our Terms of Use. I am not moderating them by personal preference. If a comment violates the Terms, it is rejected, based on the sole factor that it is not in line with our Terms.

The same happens when a comment thread is live, and a commenter violates our Terms. If that person disregards Patch's rules, that comment is deleted. The only difference here, is that I'm seeing the comment before it goes live. I can assure you that if the comment thread was live, those I am rejecting woud be deleted regardless.

As you can see by the comments here, most of the readers know, accept, and play by the Terms of Use.

Lauren

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Hi, JD.

The answer to this question is not evident as of yet. As soon as we have updated information, we will provide it.

Thanks.
Lauren Traut,
Associate Regional Editor

The details were disclosed in a bond hearing and are online at the Southtown's site.

We have more information now. http://oakforest.patch.com/articles/oak-forest-man-charged-with-wife-s-murder