Scooter Lady realizes she messed up, I’m sure. We can even congratulate ourselves on saving her a ticket. I don’t know what Homer had in mind with the original post, nor am I his spokesperson for why he took the comments down — although he’s made that clear above.

My contention has always been that many of the comments were vicious and many other comments WERE libelous: being touted as a drunk, without a driver’s license, without insurance is enough to ruin a career. I don’t know how much success someone would have in pressing the case but I do know there have been lawsuits over just such accusations and rumors.

Does a blog have to be the National Enquirer?

Pretend it was your kid riding against traffic without a helmet, or pretend your tax form was published here with questionable deductions. Would you appreciate comments on size, IQ, drinking habits, and probability of lacking a license or insurance?

C’mon, people: THINK about it. & don’t say your kid or you yourself wouldn’t do it because we’ve all fudged the law at some point.

Here’s another question: are any of the churches currently collecting books for book fairs?

this was a legit story about someone possibly abusing dogs in their care… At least have some guts and keep the posting up.

Anyway, I’m curious if anyone knows what’s up the 101 Clinton/159 Joralemon? It’s the large building on the NW corner of Clinton & Joralemon. A business owner there told me it was slated for demolition. And other businesses seem to be vacating. Anyone know what’s going in here?

Wow, I am seriously impressed with your integrity in this matter. Get the hint of sarcasm? I am not sure what was said after 9 AM this morning, but until then it seemed to be a normal, sometime heated discussion about a topic that is concern for some of us. I have read far worse comments on this blog, e.g. “Ghettoplex”, homeless woman living somewhere on Henry in a “tent”, JW’s, other homeless people, minority workers at the “Busy Chef” complex, links to the “Nanny watchers”, the Housewifes of New York (Cobble Hill Blog), etc. The most racist and nastiest comments have been made in those threads and I do not recall that you ever stepped in there to avoid of having the very worst reflecting on the BHB community.

For one, if Jennifer would walk my dog, I would like to know if she walks my dog on a scooter so that I can make sure that my dog never gets walked again by her. After all I am at work and will not see her “scooting” my dog. Second, a couple of months ago she was almost running me over on the damn scooter on the sidewalk when she was racing somewhere.

So, why did you really pull that article? Was it that she (a former lawyer) called you and threatened to sue you or did Frances, in friendship to Jennifer, ask you to remove the thread instead? As some of you might have noticed in the morning, several comments were removed and instead parts of it were cited in a response from Frances.

You have lost credibility and my respect.

The original post and photo were factual and included the opinion of the person who sent us the photo. I did not pull the post because of that content. It happened. It was true.

It was pulled because – in this case and in my sole opinion – the comments ended up reflecting the very worst of the BHB community and I could not allow that. While the original topic of someone walking dogs while riding a motorscooter was clearly a matter of public safety and appropriate for this forum, the preponderance of off-topic personal digs in the comments section gave me no choice but to pull the entire story.

We will look into ways in which we can better moderate comments – including user registration – so that we don’t have to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ in the future.

I hope you can respect this personal choice I’ve made for the blog I run and love for the best neighborhood in New York City. I stand by this site and all of its content and reserve the right to sometimes do things just because I feel it’s the right thing to do – not a First Amendment or Free Speech issue but a matter of good manners.

What happened to blog entry about the Vespa Scooter dog walker?