Most of my last blogs on the issue of beach access have been frustrating ? to me and to some of The Island Free Press readers.
?I don’t read Irene’s Blog to learn about the island’s important issues,? one reader said in a comment posted today. I skim over the comments to laugh at the KEYBOARD SPEWED HATE/PERSONAL ATTACK forum that it has become.?
Now, this is really depressing, since ?Shooting the Breeze? is intended to be a forum to present and discuss the island?s important issues.
As one of my detractors noted in comments this week, ?If the editor was really serious about having civil discourse, she would find guest speakers of different viewpoints and scrupulously edit the uncivil comments or do away with the comment sections altogether.?
So, I am taking the advice given me by this anonymous commenter and by a trusted friend and cracking down on the comments.
Going forward, I will edit the uncivil comments more scrupulously and brutally than I have in the past.
I have been editing the comments regularly, but I have preferred to be lenient to make sure everyone gets his or her chance to contribute an opinion, ask a question, or otherwise participate.
However, too many comments are full of coded obscenities and personal attacks. I understand why folks no longer want to read them.
No more.
I will publish no personal attacks ? by either side in the access debate. This includes personal attacks on other commenters and on any person publicly representing either side. Please comment on the issue and not other readers.
I will no longer edit obscenities ? coded or otherwise ? out of the comments. I will delete the entire comment.
If readers continue to post personal attacks, obscenities, or the like, I will block their IP address, which is something I really do not want to do.
I wish that commenters would not post anonymously, but I am trying my best to accommodate both my views as a journalist and the realities of the Internet and social networking.
Finally, I want to make a couple points, aimed specifically at my detractors.
Yes, I have a point of view on the issue of more reasonable beach access. So what? I am an editor and editors editorialize. My opinions are backed up by two decades of reporting the facts on park issues.
I have tried to solicit guest columns from folks who do not share my viewpoint with little or no success. I mean it when I say that if someone can submit a guest column that is well researched and has facts and figures, I will seriously consider publishing it.
In the past, I have removed comments made by readers on all sides of the issue. In fact, at the request of one of the environmental groups involved in this controversy, I have removed a comment that had what the group thought was a veiled threat to a person who has been active in endorsing more restrictive regulations.
I do not personally or editorially oppose natural resource closures or permits. I do take issue with the flawed process that the Park Service has used to get us to where we are now.
I do believe access needs to be more reasonable and that it is an issue for pedestrians, as well as drivers.
As I noted in comments posted on the blog earlier this week, I do admire the fact that Ginny Luizer, in my blog last week, put her name and her work out there for all to see, only to have her efforts soundly criticized in personal attacks on her research, her credentials, and her motives.
Even if you do not agree with Ginny?s cost-benefit analysis of the Park Service?s more restrictive management policies for breeding and nesting shorebirds, I hope that you can see that there are many different ?spins? that can be put on the same numbers. The environmental groups don?t have a lock on presenting ?spin.?
I look forward to moving on with a more constructive dialogue on this blog.
