Commenting on Progressive Charlestown

Comments are welcome unless you behave like a jerk

By Will Collette

The great thing about a blog is that you get to say what you want. If you run the blog.

It''s been a while since we've run a piece expressing our very loose policy on publishing comments, and a couple of disgruntled commenters have challenged why we choose to accept or reject comments, I’ll state my point of view and how I deal with comments on the things I write.

If you want to express yourself, here’s what you do: write comments that are either intelligent or funny, sign your name (either in the log-in or in the body of your comment at the top), and either post it yourself (it will not run until we review it) or send it to us by e-mail at progressivecharlestown@gmail.com. Use e-mail if there is some compelling reason why you need to be anonymous.

If you make a statement of fact, cite your source. My position is that if you write anonymously, I am 90% of the way toward dumping your comment. If you also posture without providing evidence for your position, I am 99% likely to dump your comment. If you are boring, repetitive or irritating, you're gone.

The editors (and I’m one of them) reserve the right to decide what we run on Progressive Charlestown. Your alternative is to either start your own blog or send your comments somewhere else. Maybe to the Charlestown Citizens Alliance – they don’t get too many comments (they certainly don’t post many).

Our latest internal stats show that for every comment we reject, we publish six and two-thirds. [1155 published versus 174 rejected].

There are some readers who think they have some legal right to post whatever they want and, worst of all in my view, to do so anonymously.

Well, we run what we choose to run. None of us are trying to make money from this blog. We’re not running for office. We don’t need to pander to any audience. And we draw the line at comments that are anonymous, stupid, offensive, unsupported by fact, already asked and answered or just plain boring. I also routinely reject anonymous one-liners, even when they are complimentary, simply because I don't think they add to the conversation.

We routinely reject anonymous comments that we perceive to be trolls. In internet terms, "trolls" are persons who prowl the internet for opportunities to make incendiary arguments and attacks against their political foes. Most trolls are conservatives and nearly all of their targets are not. Some public relations firms are hired by companies and conservative groups to focus on liberal, Democratic, consumer or environmental websites and to post negative comments. A lot of the comments we dump resemble troll comments.

Each editor has the right to reject any comment on any of their pieces they choose.

We get a lot of comments from CCA supporters who complain about how we are not very nice when it comes to describing the bad behavior of their favorites – Ruth Platner, Deputy Dan Slattery, Tom Gentz and others. They’re also pretty bitter about our tendency to reject their anonymous comments. Answer: tough. Peddle your wares on your own website.

We get surprisingly few complaints about our treatment of Lisa DiBello and her mentor, Jim Mageau, although one DiBello defender called me “evil.” To her credit, she put her name on it. We not only published it, but featured it in an article. 

Lately, I’ve gotten some comments that I’m a bad person for running photos of public figures’ homes (usually from the Town Tax Assessor official database) or looking up information about people. Answer: (a) I worked for many years as a professional strategic researcher – that’s what I do; (b) the privacy ship sailed a long time ago and (c) go ahead and Google me – you get better results using quote marks, as in “Will Collette.” Oh, and (d) tough.

I signed up with Tom Ferrio to produce Progressive Charlestown as an alternative source for news and opinion. We get terrible coverage in our local newspapers. Virtually nothing on television. And no offense to the town, but Pipeline doesn’t meet all my news needs. Finally, there’s the CCA website and occasional CCA e-bleat.

Progressive Charlestown goes in deep on Charlestown issues, culture and politics. We explore the issues from our own perspective, but have set the rule for ourselves to back up what we say with facts. We check each other’s work for accuracy and jump to correct the occasional error as fast as we can. In nearly every Progressive Charlestown article, you get links to documents and sources so you can read the original material and make your own judgments.

We also sign what we write.

We are in-your-face. We try to be funny. One commenter called us “cheeky” – not meaning it as a compliment, though we took it that way. Jim Mageau called us a “cesspool of slander and lies.” We prefer to consider ourselves the “denitrification system of slander and lies.” 

So sure, you can comment. We like that when your comment adds to the conversation. We like especially comments that are thoughtful, factual and witty. But if you want to be an anonymous jerk, send it to the CCA. I'm sure the CCA would love to hear your complaints about Progressive Charlestown - they might even publish those complaints, provided of course that you make your complaint anonymously.