When moderating comments on racial issues, we strive to balance our desire to allow people to discuss important problems in their communities with the equally strong desire to not give people a platform to promote hate or inflame racial tensions.

This is a difficult balance to achieve, and it requires a lot of communication with commenters to define the boundaries.

As with other hot button topics like abortion and same-sex marriage, we tend to see the same problems occur repeatedly in the comments. I'm outlining them here to serve as a reference on future stories.

1. Overt racism. This should go without saying, but racial epithets are never allowed on MLive. You won't get around the rule with subtle versions, either. We don't see this often, fortunately, but any user who posts epithets about any race is immediately banned. It's a one-strike violation.

2. Accusations of racism. The word "racist" gets thrown around a lot, but often the reference is inaccurate. The Dictionary.com definition of racist is "a person who believes in racism, a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others." Unfortunately, some commenters try to shut down any discussion of race by reflexively labeling those who bring up racial issues as racist. Calling someone a racist amounts to a personal attack, which is against the rules. The accusation assumes knowledge of the commenter's intent. A better choice would be to say a comment is discriminatory.

Sometimes comments clearly are racist, however. If you see such a comment, please flag it instead of responding, and a moderator will decide whether it should be removed.

3. Generalizations: So how does one spot the difference between comments about racial issues and comments that contain racism? Let's take the example of an urban crime story, which is where the problems occur most frequently. If the suspect is black, we may see comments that try to impugn all of "black culture" or all residents of a certain city. Examples include: "You can take the kid out of Detroit but you can't take the Detroit out of the kid." Or: "It is NO coincidence that the vast majority of those incarcerated, are of African American descent. Their culture promotes this kind of "thuggish" behavior." These types of generalizations do not promote constructive dialogue.

If, however, commenters seem genuinely interested in talking about problems in society they think contribute to crime — like poverty, lack of education, violent video games, or music — those comments are OK.

4. Thread-jacking: Some commenters have a habit of posting comments about President Obama, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on stories about local crime incidents. When a black person is arrested for a crime, comments along the lines of "This could be Obama's son" are removed as off-topic. In a similar vein, when a white person is killed, or when a black person is killed by another black person, comments asking "Where are Al and Jesse now?" are off-topic in most cases because they attempt to bring race into the discussion when it actually isn't a factor in the crime.

5. False equivalence: This refers to a situation where on the surface there seems to be a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none.

Here's an oft-used example: "Why is there no White History Month?"

When we write about local Black History Month events, we can usually count on at least one commenter to bring this up. However, it's a false comparison, as the history of white people in the United States and the history of black people in the United States are not equivalent experiences. There are certainly differing opinions about the value of Black History Month, but that doesn't mean the topic is open for debate on every story about a local black history art exhibit. These comments are removed as off-topic.

More examples of false equivalence include "If this had been a white man attacking a black man..." or "If a black woman had done this instead of a white woman..." These types of comments aren't productive because they lack context and assume race is the only factor determining news coverage. Moreover, they tend to set off a stream of hypothetical replies that have nothing to do with the story at hand. Such comments are also removed as off-topic.

6. Racial descriptions. Commenters sometimes ask why racial descriptions of suspects are sometimes not given, even when they're available from police. Generally speaking, the inclusion of a suspect's racial description is a matter of judgment, based on factors such as whether the public is immediately at risk, and whether a complete enough description is available to effectively narrow down the pool of suspects. If a racial description is not included, commenters can assume that in the editor's view, the information was not warranted in that case.

7. Crime statistics: We've seen an uptick in commenters posting FBI crime statistics in an attempt to paint the problem as one of race. While we encourage commenters to use data and respectable sources to back up their arguments, we do not support the use of such data out of context. Usually these crime statistics are not helpful to the discussion because they lack other details, such as socioeconomic status, that give context. Without that context, these comments will be removed as off-topic and inflammatory. Bringing up these statistics on every crime story in which the suspect is black in order to ask "What's wrong with black people?" amounts to trolling.

As we moderate discussions that touch on race in the future, we will direct commenters to this post for questions, rather than to the general Community Talk blog. Next up, I will address issues related to gender.

Jen Eyer is statewide community engagement director for MLive Media Group. Reach her at jeyer@mlive.com; follow on Twitter @jeneyer.