Have I set some sort of precedent for STLtoday?
We don’t routinely, and would not routinely take the steps I took in this case. For particularly bad cases of abusing our guidelines with vulgarity and obscenity, we would not rule it out. Did I overreact? Maybe I did. I am constantly frustrated by the difficulty of dealing with this kind of language. And in this case, I was motivated by three things. First, this came from a school. I didn’t know if it came from an employee, a guest or a student. But I viewed it as a “teachable moment” and a chance, perhaps, to nip something in the bud, to engage the community to help me. I didn’t anticipate that the reader would resign. Second, the comment was posted, deleted and intentionally posted a second time by the same person. Too much time had elapsed between posts for it to be a mistake or an accident. The reader was determined to post it. Third, it was easy. As I said, I didn’t have to dig for the school’s information. It was readily available on the e-mail alert. Had it not been there, I ma
