Election comments sure to be interesting
Election season is cranking up, and it's the first one since we started allowing anonymous comments on stories on our Web site.
And it's going to be interesting.
One commenter already encouraged us to be diligent in watching the posts and deleting overtly political comments. He or she particularly warned us to be on the lookout for comments from outside of our readership area. Political operatives or people passionate about their candidates could infiltrate our sites and fill our comment boards with their propoganda.
That's always possible, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about it. First of all, how much political commentary should we allow? Where do we draw the line? We certainly want discussions of issues and positions. That's the beauty of these things.
And second, we don't really know who is from here and who isn't. We might be able to tell from their comments, but most people don't give their locations away.
Nope, I'm inclined to let the political commentary go. It would be a huge burden for us to stay on top of the comments and judiciously remove posts that we think crossed some arbitary line. Sure, we'll take down offensive comments, as we always do, and others that we think misstate a candidate's position or say something that's untrue.
Other than that, we'll leave it to our readers to sort through the political comments - reading and learning from those they find interesting and ignoring those that they don't.
As I've said before, I've gotten pretty good at filtering through the comments to find those that have value. I think most of our regular visitors have, too.
Feb 21, 2008 at 3:56 p.m.
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Thank you for printing my letter regarding city council candidate Kevin Bishop and his partisan ties. I am concerned that Janesville's tradition of citizen involvement is threatened by partisanship, be it from any direction or viewpoint. This can result in office holders who may not be the best dedicated representatives for our city. While home owners and property tax payers are certainly not the sole citizens qualfiied for city council, the public deserves representatives who are available. An effort to contact Mr Bishop was fruitless. The only phone number for him I found was in Beloit where he must have lived until recently. The address shown in a Gazette article was for a house owned and occupied by someone other than Mr Bishop. The logical question is how accessible Mr Bishop would be to the citizens of Janesville. This raises legitimate questions about his candidacy. Thanks for reading.
Feb 18, 2008 at 4:50 a.m.
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I will risk incurring the wrath of many by saying that I support Senator Clinton, and I am rather appalled at the full-bore smear campaign leveled against her by many of the nation's newspapers. The GazetteXtra, at least doesn't trash talk anyone which is more than I can say for the New York Times and MSNBC. Go WI!! Go Hillary!!
Feb 13, 2008 at 12:27 p.m.
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Kudos to this stance by the Gazette. As varied as our culture is, there will be varied comments. We have already had one supporting the last day of Bush, and there will be those who supported Bush throughout his entire presidency. Allowing the spectrum of comments should be looked on as a good thing.
Feb 12, 2008 at 11:42 p.m.
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True that. I suspect that there are some people that would love to edit the political comments, but I am confident that the Gazette will take a neutral position in regard to the opinions of its readers. Things should get very interesting once the candidates are confirmed. I can hardly wait.
Feb 12, 2008 at 5:51 p.m.
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Why are there no comments about the incredible debt build up and inexcusable runaway spending of the Bush administration? It is no surprise that the drastic change for next president is being so widely welcomed... Even the republican candidate has been accused of being aligned with liberal democrats. It seems America is saying "anything is better than Bush's disastrous 8 years". Total presidential flop!
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