Posters are like a box of chocolates

You have the right to remain stupid. You have the right to use inappropriate adjectives. You have the right to be vile, disgusting and intentionally cruel.

Should you give up these rights, you have the privilege of commenting on our popular online comment boards.

As one of the few here at the Frontiersman who are obligated to read — and subsequently allow or disallow — comments posted on our stories, I continue to be amazed at how anguished, angry and arrogant some of our regular posters are. It’s not uncommon to come across the odd comment that calls us out for not approving someone’s lewd, over-the-top, tasteless or inappropriate drivel. This blog was sparked by another one, which laments that comments aren’t posted immediately; that they have to wait “until they have been approved by the man behind the curtain.”

Well, as one of those behind the curtain, you’ll just have to continue to put up with it.

I love the changes and upgrades to our Web site that have included more reader interaction, and the ability to comment on stories is one of the most popular. But the Frontiersman is still the vehicle for expressing those thoughts, and as a respectable community newspaper we take that responsibility to heart. You’ll only have my word on it, but be assured that nobody here exercises an agenda.

It’s common sense. You want to be vulgar, you’ll have to do it somewhere else. You want to make unsubstantiated accusations, you’ll have to do it somewhere else. You want to spam the comments, posting opinion and statements totally unrelated to the story they’re attached to, you’ll have to do it somewhere else. For example, trying to attach a diatribe about how evil Sarah Palin or Barack Obama is to a story about a high school charity benefit is inappropriate for that context and would likely not be approved. That same comment left on a letter or story with any relevance to Palin or Obama would likely be approved.

It takes considerable more effort and time to read every comment before they post. We could be like some other newspapers that allow comments to post immediately, then are forced to backtrack constantly to remove the bad apples. But the old adage that you can’t unring a bell is true, and we’d rather be responsible the first time.

That said, we are very liberal in what is allowed. Ideology is not filtered or censured at all. What you don’t see — and we do — is the IP address for every comment that comes through. In short, that means we see the address of the computer that generates the comment. So, if the same computer is generating multiple postings that say the same thing but with different names attached simply to spam the comment board, chances are not all of them will make it through.

(And by the way, those IP addresses show many of these regular commenters who say they are “from” somewhere aren’t.)

And for those who lament how this policy limits their freedom of speech I say poppycock. Nobody, not a news organization, government agency or individual, is required to give people a forum to say whatever they want. You have the freedom to speak whatever you want to whomever you want. Speak it loud, proud and clear from a bully pulpit or a soapbox.

Now I’ll return behind my curtain and wait for the commenting to resume.

—Greg Johnson