rules

I saw that my friend Andy Kleinschmidt had a great page of policies on his blog… If Charles Caleb Colton was accurate when he said “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” then I hope Andy’s sufficiently flattered!  I copied the headings, some of the general ideas Andy offered up, but as always, put it in my own words.  (The urge to edit is far too great for me to pass up!)

Advertising - There are lots of times & places for advertising.  This blog is neither.  It seems WordPress has a policy that makes it easy for me to stick to that, you can check it out here.  Simply put, my blog is hosted on WordPress.com and they say no advertising on hosted blogs.  I’m good with that and wish you the best in promoting your product or services elsewhere.

Comment Guidelines – I love it when I can write something that provides a reason to leave a comment — I hope the people who read the things I post have ideas they want to share as well.  For me, blogs are, at the core, a way to express individual experiences and opinions.  Feel free to disagree or agree — I enjoy debate.  That said, moderating comments can be a necessary evil at times.  The guidelines I use in deciding what to post are 1) is the language appropriate & respectful? 2) does the comment relate to the topic(s) discussed?   If my mom would think there is a personal attack in your comment, doubt you’ll see it posted.  If my niece shouldn’t read the kind of words you use, again, it will probably go into a holding cell.  Oh and at a certain point, understanding people may disagree, I may limit the comments when time or number become overwhelming.

Copyright - I’m not so worried about copyrights on my content as I am interested in participating in discussion.  If you’d like to include some of the information I have here, I would like to request you make some attribution or link. The time i take writing this blog is my personal time that I value. Please use common courtesy in reposting by reposting only part of my post with comments from you to add to the discussion. There may be some information I include here and attribute to others.  Where possible, I will include links but I leave it to you to check on their copyright policies.

Guest Posts – I think it is rockin to have some guest posts!  I’ve only had a few but welcome additional posts. In fact, I’ve added a page for your ideas and have talked to some people via email and have a “guest perspective” category.  If you’d like to post something, I’d ask you to follow similar guidelines as requested for comments — appropriate language and subject matter are required. I may not agree with all of the thoughts or opinions in these posts but I respect their right to those thoughts & opinions. I will seek out various perspectives to post here but in the end, I can refuse to post too.

Not Business Communication – This blog is a personal channel of expression and does not represent official communications from my employer, Monsanto Company or any other entity.  The views expressed herein and of guest authors do not necessarily reflect the views of the company or of any other individual employee.  It also doesn’t mean that my family or friends agree — I’m lucky to have a big tent of people I call my family and friends.  I love that we can have discussions about what we are passionate about and better understand each other.

I reserve the right to amend, append or otherwise modify these policies.