Guess I'll have to take my scatalogical limericks elsewhere.

Seriously, though....this is a smart move.

Ut oh, we know what that means: any comments that are critical of Salon and it's biased writers will no longer be welcome; and opinions that don't fit in with the predetermined liberal progressiveness of its readers will be deleted. Liberal media agenda: free speech for us, but none for people who disagree with us. Got it. RIP America.

A step in the right direction. The Editors Choice was somewhat useless because many of the comments noted as such made more sense when in the context of the other comments, so just viewing those letters meant you lost a lot of the value.

Now if you could provide threaded views, that would be great. That way when letters come in reply to previous letters it would be possible to actually understand the flow of the conversation without a lot of detective work.

Salon does not = the United States (America is region not a country)

Also you paranoid ideas that you state as facts do not make me want to report you just forget about you as quickly as the last bar conversation I had.

Hope you are pleasantly surprised!

There is a certain commenter, a camp follower of yours, who routinely posts rather vile, slanderous, insulting "poetry" which you seem to find amusing. I've been a target of his for over a year now and you've done nothing to rein him in. What do you plan to do about commenters like him? Anything? Something tells me that if I flag his posts, absolutely nothing will happen. Also, during the primaries and the general election, Salon seemed completely uninterested in removing comments which amounted to hate speech directed at other commenters. What brought about this apparent change in policy, and who is going to be responsible for removing clearly abusive comments?

Thank God almighty, we are free at last!

Far too high a share of the editor's choice letters agreed with or supported the original piece.

It was truly amazing that such a low share, or at least a low share of the one's I saw, that disagreed with the original author got that designation.

I shall not mourn its passing.

Liberal media agenda: free speech for us, but none for people who disagree with us. Got it.

Nice projection. Have you ever tried going to a right-wing blog and writing something that was against the opinions of the majority? Of course you haven't. But I have. I've been banned from pretty much every main right wing blog, not for writing abusive, hateful comments, but rather fact-laden refutations of the conventional right wing "wisdom."

In other words, comparatively, left wing blogs are indeed bastions of free speech compared to their right wing counterparts. Which is only natural, considering that the right wing viewpoint relies on a restriction of facts in order for it to appear at all valid.

Try this experiment: Feel free to post any opinions you have, completely contrary to the prevailing left wing viewpoint of this site, and see if they get deleted. If you can manage to be a bit respectful and not focus on pure ad hominem, you'll see that free speech is actually alive and well here.

If you think I'm gonna go all lame 'an tame

Well then you've got comin' to you

A whole 'nother thang...

I have noticed that the vast majority of comments are slanted to one end of the spectrum. Can we maybe regulate this so everyone gets a fair chance, and all sides are equally represented?

Also, during the primaries and the general election, Salon seemed completely uninterested in removing comments which amounted to hate speech directed at other commenters.

Um, Kate? Hate to break this to you, but that was you.

No doubt others responded to you in kind. Or perhaps you were responding to them. Either way, if you can't take responsibility for your own hateful comments, you can hardly expect others to.

The reason why Omar Effendi focuses on you to such a degree (full disclosure: I find him irritating too), is simply because like attracts like. If you could find a way to dial back the vitriol in your own comments, I'm sure they wouldn't be such a magnet for Omar's responses.

(This is a modification on the speech I gave my 3-year-old yesterday.)

I have noticed that the vast majority of comments are slanted to one end of the spectrum. Can we maybe regulate this so everyone gets a fair chance, and all sides are equally represented?

Coker, you're free to post on this site as often as you like, and do your best to put forth your republican viewpoint in a compelling way.

The problem you're having is that, each of your posts only serve to demonstrate the overall problems with republicanism. It's kind of like when Bush was trying to privatize social security, but each time he explained his plan, the overall support for it went down.

This is not a function of fairness. This is simply how the marketplace of ideas works. Everyone is free to write their bit; the more valid ideas rise to the top, the less valid ones (yours) fall into oblivion.

But I'll be goddamned if I'll let Hate Tex off the hook

All red neck loud 'n proud.

“Can we get an online Fairness Doctrine too?” -- Nathan Coker

Yes, the Government agency will make sure that every leftist post will be balanced out by a right-wing comment. As a result, readers are going to be utterly confused and write even more letters.

By the way, to cover expenses of the Agency, every letter writer will be required to pay a small fee. Is it fair enough?

Can we have a killfile function? So that if one commenter is consistently a waste of space, we never have to see him/her/it again?

Contrary to the whining by the right wing contributors, I see plenty of contrary posts here. The problem is these people obviously have absolutely nothing going on in their lives. I see their posts over and over and over and over everywhere. Repeating a stupid point over again does not make it less stupid.

The goal of the right to constantly argue the past eight years in order to rewrite what actually happened. When they are done, it will end up in the "George Bush Library of Revised History"