New Commenting Guidelines
The Local 328 blog is intended to be a space where members of our bargaining unit can have productive and respectful conversations with one another and with union leadership. Unfortunately, the more anonymous nature of the commenting platform on our new website has introduced some difficulties. As such, we’ve decided to implement some very basic commenting guidelines going forward:
Please provide an actual name when you make your comment. If you’re not comfortable with your full name being visible with your comment, just a first name is fine. Anonymous user names (especially those that are snarky or patronizing) make the space less friendly, and can cause the accompanying comments to seem inauthentic to readers. We want to foster open conversations, and believe that actual names will help with that.
Please provide a verifiable email address when you make your comment — this will only be visible to our moderator. While our blog is open to comments from all, we must ensure that it is actual members of our bargaining unit who are leading the conversations. During bargaining in 2019, there were several instances when management made comments posing as members. Given the nature of some of our recent blog posts, we are starting to see an uptick in suspect comments. Non-members are more than welcome to comment, but we want to know that they’re commenting in good faith. In addition, we sometimes need to communicate with a commenter before we can release a comment from moderation — without a way to do this, there’s a risk that a comment will go unpublished.
The comments on our blog are one of the best ways our union has to get feedback from and communicate with our represented employees. We want to continue our practice of allowing unrestricted comments (including those that are critical or voice an contrary opinion) with minimal barriers (e.g., without requiring registration), and believe these basic guidelines will allow us to do so. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.