Letters to the Editor
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Changes
I think Salon has made some positive changes over the past couple of weeks. This new letters policy is one of those changes. It also seems to me that article headlines are becoming less inflammatory and "tabloid-esque" than they used to be, and that's also good. I appreciate the direction Salon seems to be moving in. Nice job.
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my two cents
Registration is fine. I don't much like this weird new midget-letter font though. I don't understand all the debate about anonymous letters: this is the internet and you can't force anyone to use their real name. If you're so proud of your opinions you want to use your real name so everyone knows it's really your real-life you, fine. I'm not ashamed of my opinions but I certainly need an online persona: being so far to the left could get me in hot water with co-workers, employers, maybe even the government and the FBI in this day and age. Of course with a little National Security Letter or whatever they call it the FBI could get my email address from Salon and from there it's straight to Guantanamo. Guess I'm screwed no matter what.
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Another vote for "Ignore this User" - Pretty please with sugar on top
Frankly there are some people that I would rather not read even at a chance of having missed one pearl of wisdom in the pools of swine they usually are spewing.
And Joan, maybe its because of the excessive use in Salon articles of the word misogynist that has brought them out in force, but it's really gotten worse lately. I've been a premium subscriber for years and as someone else posted I enjoy the letter writers exchanges sometimes as much if not more than the articles themselves. I love reading the differing opinions and being given the opportunity to learn and be challenged with their knowledge.
But lately I've been so disgusted with what I've been reading, that I seriously was wondering if I was living in the twilight zone. Where do these folks come from? This is what passes for intelligent discourse in their lives?
As for the font - don't care as long as its not wingdings or symbol ;o). I'd rather see this changed first.
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Reasons for anonymous - & a format problem
You can't really ban an IP address. What about a large business with multiple people using the same network? What about dynamic, changing IP addresses?
Also, if you ban anonymous, then you make it impossible for people to describe some things without risking their job, or to discuss personal issues freely; and of course some have concern over the government not caring for some of our comments.
I like to post under my name 99% of the time, but if I'm sharing a personal issue that concerns someone else, then I'm sharing their secret as well as mine if I post under my name. Say I had a coworker friend with AIDS (I don't) who hadn't told her boss; I would want to be anonymous because I wouldn't want her boss to fire her. Or say I wanted to share useful legal information I learned during a lawsuit, but the information was sealed as part of the ruling. I would like the option to speak hypothetically and generically, hiding it under anonymous to keep people's personal details from being revealed.
Also, things aren't formatting correcly anymore. Unless it's been fixed in the past 10 minutes, these will not appear as they do in the preview page to me.
This was marked as italics.
- This is an unordered bullet.
If Salon needs a web guru, I can be tempted from my contract job ;-)
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Hey, you fixed the format thing!
Thanks!
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Further comments
I concur with those who would like to see a return to a serif font for the text. Sans-serif is just not as friendly or as scannable as a decent serif font. Sans-serif is great for short, clean blurbs of text, like the summaries to the left there, but not great for larger bodies of text.
Also, coming back to the "ignore this user" option, maybe you could at least cap the number of times someone can post in each letters column. Most people rarely need to write more than once or twice on a given article, maybe three times if they have to answer other posters. But there are the verbally incontinent who post dozens of times on a single thread, and who also seem to think this is a message board between them and other users. Capping the letter limit would restrict both profligate posting and internecine flamewars between users.
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Great Idea!!!
I'm glad to see it finally rolled out.
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Ah
Done
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choices
First, thanks for doing something about this. It was beyond bad. I admit to publishing a few opinions anonymously just because I didn't want to be abused by my screen name if I wanted to express something controversial.
I had a hard time deciding whether to change my screen name, because I'm pretty identifiable by it and by the content of the letters I've written. But I'd like to get to know some of the good letter writers by their chosen identities, as well as being known by mine. I like my identity so I decided to be brave and keep it. One question: if I HAD changed my screen name, would all of my previously written letters have been attached to the old name or the new name?
I can think of lots of topics and experiences that a person might productively write about without wanting the letter identifiably attached to them. Those that come quickly to mind are: drug use and recovery, community and family experiences, health history, psychiatric treatment, sexual history and development. I once anonymously published some information related to recent surgery I had because I hoped it would be valuable to other readers, even though it was a little embarrassing. It was an editor's choice so someone agreed that it was useful information. Nonetheless, it's nobody's business unless they're close to me. So I'm in favor of keeping the anonymous option.
If anonymous posters abuse the privilege I think Salon should block their IP addresses although they can still post from elsewhere. I also think obvious troll attacks should be removed. I'm not talking about vulgar language here - I enjoy the colorful way Salon readers often express themselves! I'm talking about hate-speech and personal insults, especially with no reasoned content. Maybe readers could help by being able to link such letters to a "troll alert" e-mail address for immediate review by the editors.
Another question: What is the proper procedure if you want to engage in a dialogue with another reader but not necessarily subject everyone else to it? There's no way to engage that person except to post another letter to the editor. I've seen those "dialogues" run into 20 or 30 posts. But I understand the desire to ask and answer questions or to clarify previous posts.
Thanks again for a step I'm sure will make Salon more enjoyable.