Comments vs. content

When talking to school board members from across Florida the other day, I heard many gripes that blogs, including ours, weaken our content by allowing untrue reader comments to remain published as if they were true. They also didn't like the hateful things that many readers say.

Hillsborough board member Jennifer Faliero, who attended, later sent me an e-mail that said, in part:

"Two suggestions; the St. Pete Times establish policies governing the use of unregistered bloggers and force people to register and implement an approval process for live comments to be reviewed before going live. This can be done at home by a staffer for round-the-clock monitoring.

"The second involves you and taking a more active role in removing content you otherwise would not print."

Faliero also wrote that some elected officials would be pushing for better laws regarding blog oversight.

"This is a policy issue which will spark lively debate; our private lives and futures are at stake and people are just fed up with the horrible things being sent out over the Net from reputable companies giving discontents a platform."

Valid point? Let's hear it, all you commenters.

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Comments

[Stay out of Hillsborough]

Hey Wendy - Sounds like you are an engaged parent that wants to be involved in your child's education.

Hillsborough doesn't like involved parents the minute an issue arises.

[Wendy]

My husband and I are considering moving from the Pittsburgh area to Tampa. We are looking at several neighborhoods, but the deciding factor will likely be the school district. Would someone please shed some light on the best school districts and how their "report cards" are gauged? Here in PA, the state regulates the funding based on aptitude testing, in which the tests can be selectively submitted. (which I do not agree with). It is not a true measure of what our schools are producing. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[OMG]

The CTA website. That is so funny. I do business online. Websites create an impression. Ours looks like it was designed by a middle school student usine Front Page. I offered to pay to have a decent website designed. I could contract through Elance a top of the line site done by a guy in India for less than 300.

I never got a response.

As for the CTA, I asked for assistance with intimidation and was told that administration could do what they wanted as long as it wasn't prohibited in the contract. So I got an evaluation filled with lies and half truths and was told I could do nothing.

Bear in mind this is the same person who admonished teachers, the people who pay her salary, not to treat the early release day as "Wacky Wednesday". No respect from my own union.

Who does that woman work for? The big school guys downtown must love her.

[TheWALL Wart]

The University of Miami Education Students Blog features Mrs. Faliero's Gradebook based "content".

http://umiamied.blogspot.com/2008/12/hillsborough-county-schools-blog.html

-and she used to do PR?

[MenckenJr]

OMG - The teacher's union is, theoretically, supposed to help protect teachers from administration persecution. You would think that the dues you pay when you join would go towards funding lawyers to file and win whistle-blower lawsuits. But you would be wrong. The Hillsborough CTA's leadership is useless - look how spineless they were when you guys lost your planning period. They're great at putting up ugly websites and patting themselves on the back for being team players, but they really s-u-c-k when it comes to really representing teachers. They forgot who they were supposed to be working for a long time ago.

[OMG]

Ms Falierio

Your comments are for public consumption right? You certainly are not speaking to those of us who know the truth.

You know full well why people have to remain anonymous. One blogger is being unfairly persecuted for his blogging activity. You KNOW its true Ms Falerio.

Does the name Doug Erwin ring a bell?

He openly criticized the board and ended up losing his job. He sued as a whistle-blower and won.

A poor teacher cant afford a lawsuit and you know that.

Citizens:

Please Google the name "Doug Erwin Hillsborough county". Ms Faliero doesn't want you to know this story. Please please...check it out. You will then understand why we speak openly at our peril.

Be honest Ms Faliero, you aren't mad at all blogs. Tell the folks which blog you really hate? The that reminds people of some of your personal peccadilloes. Hey look Ms Falerio, I wouldn't like that blog either if I were you but why throw out all of the babies with the bathwater?

Citizens:

Google "teacher blogs Hillsborough county" The first one, "The Wall" is a great starting point. On the right side of the homepage of this blog is a list of others blogs, including this one. Eskay, PRO, the Alafia blog and lets not leave out "The Casting Room Couch" (sorry Ms Falerio).

Citizens please read them, decide for yourselves if they represent misinformation written by "discontents".

We need your help. We teachers know that you support us. Read the blogs, they represent honest comments of teachers who love what they do and are heartbroken by the quality of leadership, the atmosphere of fear and intimidation and the lack of support we get from above.

You trust us with your children. Please don't believe Ms Falerio's assertion that we are a few "discontents" We are many and we are there for your kids.

We need your help now.

Again Ms Falerio, come to Eskay, The Wall, PRO on HCPS. You know who we are, you will be treated with respect, no cheap shots. Teachers are traditionally very respectful people. You will be given the respect due an elected official.

Please come back to any of the blogs mentioned above and give us specific examples of the misinformation you allege on Alafia's blog.

I sign my name on many of them but I am in fear of a knock on my classroom door. You guys do scare me, I know you can take my job. I love what I do and I am not ready to go but I have respect for myself and know that the kids deserve better.

I'll be looking for you. You will be treated fairly. When I meet you there, I will introduce myself.

I am ashamed not to post my name but I need my job.

[publicschoolteacher]

Goader's blog is actually in SUPPORT of the right to post anonymously. Read it. It was incredibly well written!

[anonymous, of course]

One reason we ARE anonymous is what Eskay and others are going through RIGHT NOW. They REALLY ARE out to get us and it's NOT paranoia!!! Does the name Doug Erwin spark any brain cells?????

[Richard L. Hancock]

To MenckenJr and others:

Click on the link to Goader and read the rest of the story.

And then read this link:

http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/Enemies_List.html

[MenckenJr]

Goader, you can do that all you want but it doesn't obscure the facts. Jennifer Faliero is one more crybaby office-holder who isn't up to her job and lives in terror that she'll be found out and bounced from it. It's the next best thing to having kids in the District, if you're one of the board members who wants you to sit down and quit rocking the boat.

[Goader]

I will defend Jennifer Faliero's right to call for the truth police and the end to anonymous commenting with the very life of my blog: EsKay.

[terminator]

11:41
well termie was dead on with his predictions for Ed Appropriations Chairs and now you and your school district educrat buddies will be eating sh*t by the time the hankie drops on sine die.
Chalk one up for termie!

[Times Editor]

Test

[Curious]

To the person who posted the following:

"I think registration is a good idea. If you wouldn't say it putting your name to it why would you say it anonymously.

Posted by: | December 09, 2008 at 12:49 PM"

If you think registration is such a good idea, why didn't YOU put your name to it????

[Patrick Kent]

I wonder what our nation would look like today if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post were not allowed to print the anonymous information provided by Deepthroat about the corrupt Nixon administration and Watergate? Scary thought.

I can say that as an insider that there are many things that I absolutely could not say that are 100% true if anyone could know my identity with any certainty. However, I would welcome the kind of TRUTH SQUAD reporting from the SPT or any other blog where anything that I write that they KNOW to be untrue or even suspect to be misleading to be called out specifically by the SPT while remaining on the site or even being removed. I know that what I write is true. I know that any kind of truth squad would support my position while termie would be called out as a delusional, misleading, lying, jerk. I don't have a problem with his posts staying on the site with SPT reposts specifying that his claims are beyond baseless. This is especially true about his predictions which are always 100% wrong. One time he said that the FSBA would never challenge the FSE in court. Then he said that they would lose. He once claimed that Rubio would sink the special session instead of passing a bill preferred by the Senate. He hasn't been right ever that I have seen. In fact, he has been so consistently wrong that we should all bet against him in Vegas. It is like as reverse guarantee.

[Publius2]

It staggers me that Ms Faliero would not understand the Constitutional right to a free press.

She may wish to redefine "the press" in her own outdated terms - ink and paper, written by professional journalists - but rational people know that the press is the publication of written ideas, including blogs. It is the very expression of ideas that is protected from government interference, and with very good reason.

When our country was founded, many of the men who debated its formation used pseudonyms in their writings out of fear of retribution from the English crown. Alexander Hamilton was "Publius" for example.

It is fundamentally American to freely express ourselves in speech and in the press. The advent of the internet has not changed this truth; it has however empowered the people far more than some in the ruling class are comfortable with.

If you can't stand the heat-get back in the kitchen.

[Brian]

Interesting that she is so concerned about how the blog comments "weaken your content."

Why would she be so scared of weak content?

[Timmy!]

Termie,

Jennifer is indeed the board member who moved out of her district, got caught, moved back.

Also check
casting-roomcouch.blogspot.com for more info on her antics.

[publicschoolteacher]

If you censor or force people to use their entire name in these blogs, you will be losing some real inside information. Most readers dismiss the name callers and the grammar police. Jeff Solochek and company post corrections on the blogs when people start spreading misinformation.

Many bloggers have real life retaliation to worry about. I'd love to use my real name. I'd love to avoid personal attacks and keep my job more, however.

[Suzie Creamcheese]

If Jenny is mad because she feels readers can't discern real debate from name-calling then she needs to concentrate on HOW they missed that critical reading/thinking skill - school, maybe?

Her attempt to make it more difficult for blogs and bloggers are reflective of how the school district treats criticism.

I consider the success of TheWALL founded on the premise of giving voice to those on the inside - free from retaliation. And since we can all smell a rat, things are pretty well moderated.

If a blogger is being juvenile by name-calling and such, just ignore that blogger. There are times I think comments on this site are silly, funny, repugnant, repulsive, accurate, inappropriate...those are my opinions of others' opinions. That's what blogging is for, isn't it? I certainly don't take someone's opinion as the truth unless I can back it up elsewhere. As far as not saying things I wouldn't put my name to-there are things I don't like about my job (school boards being one of them) but I want to keep it, as I love the most important part of my job. The teaching part. Get it?

[terminator]

After reading Mrs. Fallacio (I mean Faliero's) email to Gradebook, I almost had to blow cookies.
"This is a policy issue that will spark lively debate"?
"Our private lives and futures are at stake"?
The woman sure has a flair for hyperbole.
With the state of Florida sinking into an economic abyss, the hightest unemployment rate in 15 years, second in the nation for #'s of foreclosures and legislators mired with $2 billion more in cuts this fiscal year and $6 billion for 09-10, I'm sure that will be at the top of legislators list for the most important things to do in Tallahassee this session.
Maybe Obama/Reid and Pelosi can pass it out by January 20th, it's such a pressing social issue.
So who are these "elected officials" who will be asking for better laws regarding blog oversight"?
I suppose Mrs. Fallacio and her Florida School Board Association blowhards?
That's too funny!!!!!!
Can someone local confirm that she was indeed the Hillsborough board member who was living out of district last year and had her kids going to a school across town from where they were supposed to be going?

[Scott]

The problems is the insults, from left and right, the degrading descriptions (short, fat, what people are wearing, etc). Real discourse is great. There are too many juveniles that blog. The Poynters are looking down - they are not happy with you

[Patrick Kent]

"I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799.

[Patrick Kent]

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816.

[Patrick Kent]

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

[Richard L. Hancock]

I find it interesting that the representative of a system that labels parents such as myself as "isolated incidents" for twenty years now find such a need to stifle an "isolated incident".

http://hcpspolbused.blogspot.com/

[Richard L. Hancock]

Sounds like Ms. Faliero is advancing a world agenda:

"....From Times Online
December 9, 2008
Leading Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, arrested over freedom charter
Jane Macartney, Beijing

A leading dissident who organised hundreds of Chinese thinkers, academics and writers to sign a charter calling for dramatic democratic and legal reforms was under arrest today......"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5313746.ece

Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic first jailed for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, was taken from his Beijing home late on Monday by a dozen police, who first required him to sign a document accepting his detention. They searched his flat and took away three computers, mobile phones and documents, family friends told The Times.

His disappearance came just hours before the release on the internet of the “08 Charter”, a rare outspoken document challenging the ruling Communist Party to grant greater freedoms of expression and to hold free elections. Its publication was timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tomorrow.

A total of 303 people – from the most prominent Tibetan blogger to lawyers and a disgraced former senior Communist Party official – braved possible arrest and jail terms to put their names to the document. ....

[terminator]

more on this later but looks like a lame attempt to stifle criticism of incompetent school board members.
wasn't Faliero (sometimes confused with fallacio) the one who was living out of her district following a divorce last year and had her kids going to a school in west Tampa when she was supposed to be representing east Tampa?
Blog and gradebook are fantastic vehicles for gaining valuable feedback without fear of retribution from government types like her that would love to deny folks their first amendment rights.
Faliero should be sent to North Korea and she can be on the school board there!

[Blogger]

Are you kidding? This is a blog. If you do not like the information, do not read it. If you do not like your public critic, get another job.

[Richard L. Hancock]

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/nov/19/me-school-sues-woman-for-criticism-on-blog/news-metro/

The Case:

New School of Orlando v. McSween | Citizen Media Law Project

Write down this number: 2007 -CA -014312 -O

Go to this link: Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida

click on Orange county

Type in the above numbers in the Case Quick Search

click Get Info

Click Get Details

******************

http://www.switched.com/2007/11/07/texas-school-district-sues-blogger-mom/

http://gisdwatch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=211&Itemid=2

******************

http://prohcds.blogspot.com/search/label/Blog%20lawsuit

[mc]

Can you say BIG BROTHER? This is just another attempt to silence their employees and infringe on their right to free speech?
Furthermore, as far as anybody especially are HCPS educators which are strictly prohibited by their contract, I DO believe from talking to the press concerning any HCPS matters without attaining their approval first!
Therefore, please try to remember it is a blog end if you take everybody's posts as factual then you probably should not read anybody's comment AT ALL.

[Lisa]

I agree that the constitution guarantees us freedom of speech. All school board members are elected by the people, not assigned. Listen up because many comments are actually coming from school employees who really see the inside picture but no one is listening up top. Your information that you make decisions on is coming from administration staff. You will only get figures that they want you to see. If you wanted the job, then suck it up and toughen your skin a little. That is the nature of politics.

[Joe]

"...people are just fed up with the horrible things being sent out over the net from reputable companies giving discontents a platform."

I am fed up with the horrible things coming out of the school board meetings and I don't see her stepping up for me! People are missing the ideas behind a blog and comments. Take them with a grain of salt. I don't think people are going out and citing these blogs for reasearch papers or anything. Perhaps they would just like to have a record of their employees' gripes, like I am doing right now.

I think registration is a good idea. If you wouldn't say it putting your name to it why would you say it anonymously.

[Let Freedom Speak]

What happened to freedom of speech? The country is always talking about how we are at war defending our ability to state what we think without fear of retribution, the district's own school board meetings do not allow parents, staff, or even fellow board members to speak their mind, ask questions, nothing. They moved the meeting to 2hrs earlier to discourage anyone's involvement, they force speakers to sign up in advance and to let them know what they will be speaking about, and if they do not like what you are saying, then they turn your mic off. Fellow board member April Griffin was threatened by Ms. Falerio with removal if she continued to speak, this was all live before the cameras for the whole community to see. Our blogs, our ability to speak are our only avenue to alert others to change, or another oppinion. Please don't further restrict an already restricted community.
Thank you,

[MenckenJr]

No, it isn't valid. Ms Faliero is just the latest in a string of embarrassed politicians who would *love* to find a way to tone down the criticism of their inexcusable behavior. When she opens her mouth and starts saying things like this, all I hear is "Waaaaaaaahhhh! They're being mean to me! Make them stop! Waaaaaaaaahhhhh!".

If she can't stand the heat, she should resign and let somebody with a brain and some moral backbone occupy the seat in her place. If she can't do *that*, she should collect her paycheck and close her mouth so we don't have to keep throwing her a pity party.