Rules of the Blog

I started this Elburn mayor's web blog as an experiment. After noticing the blogging phenomenon that played a integral part in the recent Bush-Kerry campaign, I wanted to see how Elburn residents would respond to a more tech-saavy source of information about their community. I have done my best to create timely essays about our region different from what most bloggers would read in a local newspaper. Please note that I didn't say "better," just different.

So far, your response has been very favorable. Several individuals have posted comments to the blogs, and many more of you have e-mailed me with kind words of encouragement and additional questions. I want each of you to know that I have enjoyed answering your e-mails immensely. One person even wrote to tell me that the mayor's blog had inspired her to start a web log of her own. That was an exceptionally nice comment to make, and it was a pleasure to subsequently meet this person to talk about Elburn, blogging and life in general.

But, as this blogging experiment continues to evolve, it occurs to me that we are going to need a few rules for the blog. It hasn't happened yet, but the "first rule" of the blog is that there will be no profanity allowed in the posted comments section. Many of the national bloggers have found that as their blogs develop, eventually the anonymous comments become so nasty that those sections have to be hidden, or eventually turned completely off. I sincerely hope that we will never have to do that here in Elburn.

The "second rule" of the blog is that I will never publish comments to the blog anonymously, or have comments planted anonymously in this blog by someone else acting on my behalf. For the most part, once a blog is published, I intend to simply sit back, stay silent and listen to you. As long as the comments continue in a responsible fashion, we can have this diaologue about our community. Hopefully, we can learn more about each other, and get a better sense of what each of us dreams about for Elburn and our future together.

That is pretty much it for rules so far. Please don't use profanity, and you can count on the fact that I will never post comments anonymously myself. Those of you that know me well, know that I am not one who looks for the worst in others. The trustees of this Elburn Village Board and I are wholly interested in identifying problems, finding solutions that work, implementing those solutions and moving on the the next issue.

But, as the saying goes, even when it comes to blogging, "You can't please everyone." Bill Cosby once said, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone." Truer words were never spoken.