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[Replaced_Texan]

Just for clarification purposes, for those that don't follow the PB, yesterday, after a PM discussion with Wonk, I edited one of Wonk's posts on the PB.

I thought, on my own and without having seen any other reactions to the post, that it was potentially threatening to the President, and I responded. Later, I received a PM from a moderator with similar concerns suggesting that the post be considered for deletion. I responded that I'd talk to Wonk.

I sent Wonk a PM asking him if he could soften the language a bit. I did not tell him that I would delete the post and I never really considered deleting the post, though in retrospect, given that I am the admin of lawtalkers, it could have been construed as a "change it or else" PM. I also posted a thread on the admin board asking for input from other admins. Wonk responded via PM with suggested softer language. When I saw Wonk's response, I deleted the admin thread, thinking the issue had been resolved. I thanked him via PM, and I clarified why I was concerned, citing what I thought was applicable statutory language that I had found on my own. I found the language, unfortunately, through having to deal with the Secret Service following up percieved threats to the President and I related that to Wonk. Wonk's follow up PM disputed the applicability of the statute, but he allowed me to use my judgment about whether or not to delete the post if I felt that it may cause harm to the community.

Wonk then amended his earlier statement on the PB in a follow up post.

Seeing his amendment on the PB, I edited "that I would rather see Bush dead than re-elected" to "[that any man who is willing to put my life and the lives of millions of people at risk in order to curry favor with a small but vocal voting bloc deserves to find himself the victim of the sort of poetic justice that would result from him being in the position one day of having his life dependent upon a cure that won't be found in his lifetime for a disease that could have been treated with the appropriate measure of stem cell research.]" and I noted at the bottom that I changed the post to reflect Wonk's own amendment.

If I read things correctly, Wonk just posted that he edited the original post as well, and we may have been editing at the same time.

Then I went to the meeting that I was already late for.

When I came back, I saw that Wonk was objecting to my edit, and I posted that I had thought that he had agreed to the edit, and if that was not the case, he was more than free to change it back.

Anyone who has been following the politics board knows that I am supportive of neither the current administration nor its position on stem cell research. I brought the issue up to Wonk because I saw that two posters (myself and Aloha) independently came to the same conclusion that it was the type of statement that the Secret Service could have an interest in investigating. Our responsive posts were nearly identical, though neither one of us had seen the other's response before posting. I honestly thought I had consent to alter the post, and I would not have done so without that consent.

Obviously, I would have never gotten involved had I not been the moderator of this board, and my PM to Wonk was definitely sent in my capacity as moderator. If I hadn't been late for a meeting, I probably would have tried to get a little more consensus from the other admins and mods on the situation, but I made a judgment call, and clearly it is one that can be disputed.

I take censorship very seriously, and I welcome any comments on how better to handle a situation like this one.