Gary, I'm one of the most prolific letter writers with over 700 posts in 12 months. I am guilty, because I have posted more than a few ugly or stupid comments that have discolored the whole discussion and probably scared more thoughtful commentators away.

I can be one of the "drops of iodine" you mentioned.

On the other hand, I can also write thoughtfully and well, as evidenced by the fact that 12 percent of all my letters receive red stars.

If you care to look back at my posts, the times when I have been your iodine rather than a thoughtful contributor are nearly always in response to a troll who comes to this place for no other reason than to ridicule Salon and Salon's faithful supporters. Most of these trolls are not interested in fair discussion. Their overall thrust can be paraphrased by their recurring theme: "all you liberals are stupid."

None of these posters has a stake in Salon. Not one of them is a registered premium member willing to support Salon.

If you want to talk about Salon's image being degraded, look no farther than the trolls who come here to throw their spit wads. If you want to eliminate the impression that Salon readers are much stupider and coarser than they really are, you have only to crack down on the trolls.

If you really got serious about eliminating the "joes" and the "No Name Givens" and the "Anonymous" trolls I believe you would find that the level of discourse here would improve dramatically.

You can't really lament the quality of the letters you get if you refuse to cull the assholes and provocateurs.

Letters in Salon are too frequently ugly and disheartening. When Salon started publishing all submitted letters, I was immediately disappointed that a liberal mag has such unfeeling and critical readers.

I've almost stopped reading letters, especially those referring to articles that have moved me. I don't feel like being berated for feeling connected with a writer who has revealed some inner drama that many others consider to be just plain stupid.

I don't know how writers do it; Waldman is smart to not read the disdainful commentary on her own work. And the thought that writers will change what they say based on anticipated feedback... to terrible to contemplate.

This is an interesting and thought provoking article. Many of the comments were good also. "Salon Thunderdome"s comment that the process may distort content as writers compete for page views is confirmed by my observations of Slate and the readers' comments on Slate's Fray. Too much of the content strikes me as designed by the writers to provoke controversy. Mickey Kaus is particularly guilty of this tendency. The content is affected also in some cases in the direction of looking for cute, unusual or weird events, also designed to capture readers' eyeballs, while more serious news events are ignored. What you get on Slate or Salon is quite different from what you find in the NY Times or Washington Post. This is both good and bad. Getting a fresh perspective from columnists and their readers often has considerable value. On the other hand, one must wade through a lot of fluff and "cutsie-gee whiz" material sometimes of dubious accuracy. (As in the case of superficial reporting on scientific or social science research of questionable validity.)

Another thought about the applicability of Internet feedback to traditional newspapers and magazines-- If I were the owner or editor of a newspaper or other paper publication I would move quickly to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet. I would adapt Wikipedia principles of interactivity and peer production to improve the content of my publication. Reporters have access to limited information and their perspective is often limited or biased. And sometimes their writing including grammar, word choices and diction leave much to be desired. I would therefore require the author of each news or other article to invite comments/corrections/additional information and post his or her email address at the end of each article. Feedback from a hundred or a thousand reader-editors could do a lot to improve the performance of many mediocre and even quite good reporters. Often additional facts or information occur to me, or I spot factual errors, when reading an article which, if called to the attention of the writer, could improve future articles. And I fairly often run across nit-picking writing errors which I would like to call to the attention of the author if there were an easy mechanism to do so.

Beyond encouraging one-on-one communications from readers to writers, newspapers that expect to survive and prosper should move quickly to incorporate on-line open forums along the lines of Salon's and Slate's on as much as possible of their content, especially their editorial and op-ed pages. They would be surprised by the response they would get. I'm biased in favor of allowing instant, unedited posting of reader commentary with the proviso that scurrilous material will be deleted and the poster of such material banned.

Finally, some forums allow links to other material. This is a plus.

and ...at the risk of exposing another effect of the feedback writers almost certainly will not like is my tendancy to scan the articles I assess as dull and go straight to the letters for their thoughts and to see if I become interested enough in the reader diatribe - to read the article...

Removeing the unedited letters would instantly result in a search for unedited, thoughtful, snarky, cynical, funny, brilliant reader contributions, at another site...I have found none yet with the high quality of Salon assholes, philosophers and empaths...and even the undecipherable is worthy of puzzlement if you be at work with nothing to do and Salons writers are not geberating enough articles.

Just read the editors choice, writers. Then you can get the new views with the accurate critisism...and leave the 'brainstorming' reader 'forum' for us to expand our unique personalities...

P.S. This article should be a Hallmark Sympathy card in the journalism section next to - Sorry, to hear you caught some IED...get well soon...

Thanks Salon for three years of often LOL distraction and from the tedeim that is my job.

Thanks Salon readers for pointing out my spelling, syntax, and other writing mistakes, whenever I write a comment that pisses you off.