As many of readers have witnessed, the comments and blogs on mydesert.com have gotten out of control in recent weeks, many of it related to the emotional topic of Proposition 8. To remedy the personal attacks and other violations that have marred the site recently, mydesert.com is stepping up its enforcement of the terms of service, which all users agree to follow when signing up for an account. Please note that the terms of service have not changed, only that the moderators will be tightening their enforcement of the terms.

The entire terms of service is here: mydesert.com/terms. The pertinent information is listed under the Interactive Features header on that page.

As of Friday, Nov. 21, mydesert.com is instituting a "three strikes and you're out" policy. Once a poster has had three posts removed for any reason, mydesert.com will block them from the site. When a moderator removes a post that violates the terms of service, it will be replaced with a line that reads, "Username's post has been removed for violating the terms of service." This is not when a poster has been reported three times; it is when a moderator removes a poster's comment or blog for the third time.

Please note that mydesert.com cannot actively monitor every blog, forum and comment thread. The moderators rely on the community to police itself. If you see a post that violates the terms of service, please report abuse, and a moderator will investigate as soon as possible. Moderators are not notified of abuse reports as they come in, but do check several times per day as time permits.

The following reasons are offered for reporting abuse:

Obscenity/Vulgarity: This includes trying to avoid the banned word filter by using alternate characters to form obscenities as well as graphic descriptions of sexual or violent acts. The general rule is that if it's allowed on prime-time network TV (think "CSI" or "The Office"), it's allowed on mydesert.com.

Hate Speech: Hate speech can be directed at individuals or groups. Criticism is fine, but any post that uses derogatory phrases directed at a group of people based on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or disability will be considered hate speech.

Personal Attack: This is whenever a poster attacks another instead of responding to the stated opinions and includes name-calling. This also includes "outing" another poster, revealing their real name or other personal information. The debate should be about the issue, not the individual.

Advertising/Spam: Any post that advertises a for-profit business is not allowed. Posts that announce news about a business (promotions, openings, closings, location changes) are permitted. Posts that announce news about a fundraiser for a non-profit organization at a business are allowed. Posts from non-profit organizations are allowed.

Copyright/Plagiarism: Posts that include full works of copyrighted material (news articles, photographs, graphics, any creative work) from other sources, even if attributed, are not allowed. Posts that include a couple of paragraphs of material and link to the rest are permitted. Internet memes - those ubiquitous chains that float around the web with an unknown origin - are allowed as well.

Other: This includes libelous statements and threats (including implied threats) to others. In general terms, libel means a comment that includes a false statement of fact that actually harms a person's reputation (as opposed to insulting or offending them).

Please note that we will allow the following, as long as the post does not violate another section of the terms of service:

We will allow opinions some will find offensive.

We will allow conversation that is simply harsh in tone.

We will allow criticism of public officials.

We will allow criticism of people who are subjects of stories.

We will allow opinions that some may find offensive about tough social issues around race and sexual orientation, as long as they don't include the kind of specific language, hate speech or personal attacks described above.

One last note about posting names and addresses of those who donated to political campaigns: We WILL allow readers to post names and cities of businesses, be it local small businesses or international corporations. Please do not post their phone numbers or exact street addresses. We will NOT allow posting names, addresses or phone numbers of individuals who donated. Readers may feel free to post links to databases containing this information. Although this information is contained in a public database of financial contributions, and could therefore be considered fair game, the retaliation and the viciousness of subsequent personal attacks that followed is why the posts have been deleted and why we will not allow future posts of this nature on mydesert.com.