I got this response from Park Slope Parents about my post “Censorship at Park Slope Parents?”

We were surprised and disheartened to see this blog post since we had not been contacted to find out if it was accurate.  It is not.

We have not prevented Allison from posting on this topic.  We have required that she do so through our Journalist Request process, once she disclosed to us that she had posted to PSP on the topic of “bad parenting” as part of a pitch for an article she was hoping to write.  She also disclosed that the pitch has now been accepted and she wishes to continue the discussion because of that.

The moderators and Advisory Board thought that it was best that Allison inform members that she was requesting information not solely for her own parenting interest, but for her business interests as a writer. Some members who participated in the thread with the understanding that it was solely an intramural discussion of what constitutes bad parenting might have chosen otherwise if they’d known that Allison is writing an article on the topic and using PSP to, as she told us in her email, “finesse a pitch” for that article.

Once she disclosed out that she had posted for journalist purposes, we asked her to post through our “Journalist Process,” so members could decide for themselves whether they wanted to engage in her journalistic endeavor.  We also reminded her that, whether or not she chooses to continue the thread, she must not use any quotes from the thread without getting explicit permission from the posters.

As of yet, she has not amended her PSP post in such a way that it makes her intentions clear.  Is this censorship? We don’t think so. We are still open to Allison continuing this thread openly, as a journalist.

Finally, OTBKB compliments some good characteristics of PSP. These characteristics exist BECAUSE of the moderation We do have standards for conducting discussions which we enforce and that everyone agrees to abide by when they join. To equate enforcing these with censorship is to trivialize censorship and free speech. If Allison had been up front about her intentions from the start, this wouldn’t be an issue.