Before I discovered Salon, I found the "blogosphere" a bore--or more exactly the latest way to package the oldest profession. Mostly, because the sites are the "converted" speaking to each other, pure propaganda, thinly disguised ads, or outright loonies egging each other on--as Gary points out.

Or not really a discussion at all--just people competing to write the best bon mot. (Not to mention any names.)

From the writer's standpoint, and more specifically my own, it has provided the opportunity to develop thought and engage in what I call the "dialog," of our time. Finally, I've learned the internet has a beneficial public purpose!

If salon.com only turns out to be an experiment that fails, and Gary's article is some sort of test, I want to make sure I get in a sincere vote for its continuation. I don't care about the occasional rant and raver; I'm not personally threatened by some electrons spread across a computer screen no matter how much hate they contain. (I don't have to read them.)

But I am threatened by those who become dangerous because they don't have an outlet--and want to act it out in some other way that is far more damaging. The wonder is the quality of so much that is said, and that the editors let so much of it through. At least, I now have a better idea of what is really "out there." And so does everybody else.

To me, that's the open society so often lauded, but so rarely practiced.

The bottom line: I doubt if in the 90 or so posts I've made, despite all the effort, if I have influenced one mind, but if I have--or I have somehow led someone to take a deeper look at this "dark" time (my point of view, which it is my responsibility to own) it has been worth it.

The frustration of being "cut out" just because one hasn't been called upon to contribute professionally is difficult, yet this provides an alternative. That's what I have to add--with appreciation.

My husband has moderated forums of many types and subject matters over the years, and we have come to the conclusion that for every topic, no matter how seemingly non-controversial, someone will always come by and add what I call a "Cadillacs Suck!" post on the forum. This will be a post that will always the deny the fundamental premise of the site (such as in a section called Modifications, they write "You are an idiot if you mod your car!") These people are angry, inebriated, have not taken their medication, or simply have the mind of a thirteen year old boy. My husband invariably bans them from his forum. He still has plenty of lively debates with disagreements. He just doesn't have arguments about whether someone is behaving properly, namecalling, and off topic hatemongering.

Great article, great story.

How many of us have written intelligent and well reasoned letters to the editor to have not seen one in print or, in that unlikely event, to have one's words deliberately edited to take the meat out? The only time I ever had a response in pre-internet days was a columnist who failed to print my letter but who did use his next column to malign everything I had written.

The Boston Globe once edited a letter of mine to remove the obvious sarcasm, changing it so that it seemed as if I were advocating the very point I was mocking.

And let's be honest: the "Editor's Picks" around here, much more often than not, are either the goody-goody ones that agree with the article or the worst-written disagreeing ones. It's the same old "letters to the editor" trick.

The fact is that the pros haven't yet gotten used to the sort of feedback musicians and stage actors have always lived with. They're babies.

If Salon is going to build its business strategy around cheaply produced opinion articles designed to elicit user-generated content then its writers and editors had better stop being so thin-skinned. Moreover, they'd better get used to losing their old tricks for controlling the dialog. You can't have it both ways.

You want a personal attack? I'll give you one: since Joan Walsh took over Salon the focus has switched from reported articles -- expensive! -- to inexpensive naval-gazing opinion pieces from a small circle of writers who have far more in common than they do not. THAT is what caused my wife to insist we cancel our premium membership, after YEARS.

That's fine, if that's making financial sense for Salon. But don't get your nose out of joint if readers amuse themselves by making fun of a roster of writers who could all have come from the same sorority, and whose writing is so predictable that emailing parodies of them around has become at least as much a part of the fun as reading them.

Dear Mr. Kamiya,

I'm glad that you have finally addressed the issue of reader feedback and its impact on Salon, and I have been following the responses to your piece with some interest. It's an interesting discussion, and for the most part responses have been thoughtful--as befits the topic.

Like many who have responded, I am a long-time Salon reader who let my premium subcription lapse for the same reasons others have stated: the ill-considered editorial changes that brought in Broadsheet, a completely open letters forum, and all the rest of the blogification/bloviation that resulted. And like some of the respondents here, I was among the readers who protested strongly at the time. In fact, I subscribed to TableTalk for the first time specifically to voice a protest where it might be heard.

I discovered that many readers shared my concern, and developed a comraderie and sense of community there and sometimes in the letters section that I appreciated. Many of us bonded over our affection for Salon as it had been and our distress over what it had become.

Every single one of my posts was polite, civil, and well-phrased. All of my responses to individual articles were also polite. In fact, the angriest thing I ever posted was in response to one of your articles, Mr. Kamiya, on Edward Said--you were one of the writers whose work I had nearly always found thoughtful, even-toned and interesting, and I was deeply disappointed to see that you too had apparently fallen into the 'go for clicks, no matter the content' mentality. I was so fed up that I was less careful than I usually am to take the author's feelings into consideration and my post was uncharacteristically terse. For that, I apologize. I have always admired you and had no wish to cause you pain. For the growing despair that fueled it, I do not.

I think that was the last letter I ever posted, and probably the last time I bothered to read Salon daily. I had seen too many writers here: especially Rebecca Traister who I used to admire, fall into a truly nasty 'bait the mob' style of journalism, and as others have already said, increasingly every single feature seems to be designed to stir up the lowest common denominator of reactive discourse. Although responses to Cary Tennis' column are sometimes the worst, I have admired his continued compassion and his consistency. Of all the writers here, he has managed to sometimes turn his open forum into something sometimes useful.

But every single one of our protests regarding Salon's changes--no matter how politely phrased and how thoughtful, was ignored. When Ms Walsh did respond, her responses were invariably contemptuous.

Her complete and utter failure to respond to criticism--no matter how carefully or constructively phrased, her apparent contempt to her readers and her insistence on proceeding along her chosen course reminds me of nothing so much as the current Bush presidency. Salon has, perhaps unconsciously, absorbed the prevalent toxicity of current public discourse. And most of us more thoughtful, more careful readers have probably at this stage given up, leaving the arena to the trolls.

Nonetheless, I have been following the discussion this entire time, and I am pleased to see that finally, after two overlong years, that Salon is finally reconsidering some of these decisions. But I am also sorry to say that at this stage my sympathy for Salon is gone.