Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Sorry, I am not running those comments any more

A few hours ago, I noticed that I had five new anonymous comments for the Turner Report.

Since they all came within a few seconds of each other and I have not written anything remotely controversial over the past few days, I figured the comments were probably from the same person.

It turns out I was right.

This person thinks it is amusing to take whatever subject I have written about and write something to the tune of "You can blame C. J. on this," or "It must be C. J.'s fault."

That was the type of comment on each of the five and the comments were placed on five separate posts.

I deleted four of the comments and published the fifth, since the fifth was actually on a post that mentioned C. J. Huff.

This same person has been leaving this comment on numerous posts ever since C. J. Huff "retired."

If he or she wants to continue to do so, that is fine. I have to deal with hundreds of junk e-mails every day, so spending a few minutes deleting useless comments is not going to be much of a hassle.

I have gone above and beyond in my efforts to include as many reader comments as possible. As I have mentioned before, the primary reasons I have deleted comments in the past is because they either contained profanity, included racist comments, or libeled someone, including occasionally me.. I am amazed at how many people think they can say things that are not true about me and that I will publish them.

On the other hand, I welcome people who disagree with me and will happily continue to publish those comments.

Another type of comment that will no longer be found on any new Turner Report posts is the one that refers to everyone with the suffix "tards." I probably should have stopped that one a long time ago. It is possible to write something critical without being offensive.

Perhaps this is an attempt to be politically correct, but well reasoned comments will always have a home here. When a person's idea of intellectual discourse includes that suffix, he or she has left the concept of a well reasoned comment behind.

Some of the critics of this blog have jumped all over the fact that I allow people to comment anonymously. That is not going to change. Anyone who has read this blog for the past couple of years has been able to find thoughtful comments and often valuable information from anonymous comments, whether they were positive toward the Turner Report or not.

Returning to the subject that began this post- the commenter who thinks it is funny to add a C. J .Huff comment to every post- the idea he or she seems to be trying to put across is that C. J. Huff is gone so it is time for the Turner Report to follow suit.

Sorry, I am not planning on going anywhere.

When the area's newspaper of record fails to inform its readers about problems in the city government and in the school district and then raises its prices, there is a need for an alternative news source.

When newspapers decide they want to increase their revenue by turning what has always been news, for instance, obituaries, into another commodity for sale, there is a need for an alternative news source.

When people know they will be fired if they step forward and talk about serious problems, and the area's newspaper of record will not even listen unless they reveal their names to the readers, then there is a need for an alternative news source.

On Sunday, I revealed to readers on the Inside Joplin Facebook page and on my Facebook page that I am beginning an expansion of the Turner Report/Inside Joplin trying a new approach to offering coverage that readers are not able to get anywhere else.

The Turner Report/Inside Joplin has been growing for the past couple of years, but we are just getting started. I will reprint that Facebook post in a few minutes.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

its not being pc, its just good common sense.
i always believed anonymity was necessary to get to truth.
i think you're spot on.

and, i'll be posting anonymously