More and more members and non-members are starting to take advantage of the opportunities to share their comments on weac.org stories and blogs and to participate on the WEAC Facebook page. We are very pleased to see this trend in sharing thoughts, ideas and perspectives on a wide variety of issues.

Over the weekend, on weac.org, we saw quite a flurry of conversation, much of it surrounding reports on President Obama’s visit to Madison, his Race to the Top initiative, and state legislation crafted to make Wisconsin eligible for Race to the Top funds. For the most part, it has been a high quality conversation that contributes positively to the debate. There are many perspectives on these controversial issues, and it is beneficial that they all be expressed.

I have seen and participated in many forums and comment areas on a lot of different types of Web sites. Each site has its own personality and seems to have developed its own tone of conversation – most are civil, while some tend to be less so, and a few simply deteriorate into rants of disrespect, snide attitudes and name-calling.

As a member organization and education organization, we feel it is important to maintain a professional decorum as we openly discuss these issues. We certainly welcome all thoughts; we just ask that we all express ourselves thoughtfully and, most important, respectfully.

WEAC’s Social Networking Guidelines are designed to set the tone for the types of conversations that take place on weac.org and on the WEAC Facebook page. To me, one of the most important guidelines is also one of the most basic. It says simply: Be Respectful.

We do monitor all comments before they are approved for posting, and we will not approve comments that don’t comply with our Social Networking Guidelines. It is a rare instance when a comment is not approved for posting. If it’s not, it probably comes back to that very simple rule: Be Respectful.