Over the weekend I talked with two Gazette readers who watch but don't participate in the blogs on beaufortgazette.com. Coincidentally, each had the same observation about what they've seen here recently, although they arrived at that observation from different paths.

The gist of their message was this: The never-ending candidate bashing on this site can actually hurt, not help, the candidate that the person doing the bashing favors.

If you haven't checked out the Gazette video of Tuesday's pro cycling race in downtown Beaufort, here's the link: http://www2.beaufortgazette.com/node/19395

The video was taken by Meghann Ackerman, the newest member of the Gazette staff. Meghann's position, online reporter, represents a cultural change for us, as she will be the first reporter whose primary responsibility will be to beaufortgazette.com, not the printed Gazette. It's an important move for us, as newspapers are shifting more of their resources online, where the audience is increasingly rapidly.

The blog entry about the alleged incidents at Shell Point Elementary has been removed. We don't doubt the seriousness of what the poster said happened, but without confirmation from the school or law enforcement, there is a risk that someone who is completely innocent could be wrongly implicated. If this proceeds through the courts, we'll treat it as a news story in the Gazette.

I realize that not everyone will agree with this decision, but for now all we have is one person's version of what happened. That's dangerous territory, even on the blogs.

- Steve Blust, executive editor

I think you mean well, but please reread the terms of use for this site, specifically this line: You may not solicit funds, promote commercial entities or otherwise engage in non-commercial activity in our discussion forums.

These types of business-related posts aren't permitted here. Sorry.

If you haven't read Brandon Parker's column in this morning's Gazette about Beaufort High School athlete Seth Konoza and his late mother, take a few minutes and give it a look. http://www.beaufortgazette.com/sports/columns/brandonparker/story/231729.html

It's a touching story about an excellent student-athlete who was motivated by his mom, who died of cancer on Feb. 3.

This has nothing to do with the Calverts or the upcoming school referendum, so it isn't likely to generate as much comment as those hot topics. But did anyone else see the premiere of "John Adams" Sunday night on HBO?

Folks, we're in another of those periods of too many inappropriate posts on the site, and I would ask that you please reread the terms of use to which you agreed when you registered on this site.

The personal attacks at other users have to stop. That includes all references to changing the wording in a user's name to make it derogatory (shadoze, etc.).

Your language went way over the taste line, and you've lost the right to post on this site.

Read the user agreement, folks, and keep it clean.

This one hit too close to home for me. NIU was where I went to college in the early '70s, and Cole Hall, where a gunman killed six students and himself Thursday, is a lecture hall where I took several classes, including one we affectionately called "Monday Night at the Movies," a theater class where we watched and discussed classics such as "Citizen Kane" and "The Birth of a Nation."

I remember the sick feeling I had watching the Virginia Tech shootings unfold last April. The last thing I thought I would see would be a similar situation develop on a campus I called home for four years.

Up until now I've tolerated your rambling posts and regarded them as mostly harmless, attributing them simply to someone who appears to have a little much time on his hands. But now that you've entered profanity in a couple of them, since deleted, you're banned from the site. I'm sure there are other Web sites that would welcome your thoughts. This isn't one of them.