Comment procedure for Progressive Charlestown has been changed

No more anonymous comments – you must be registered

By Will Collette

Since Tom Ferrio and I launched Progressive Charlestown two years ago, we’ve generated more than 5,000 comments. We have published just under 3,500 of them.

We’ve struggled with what to do about “anonymous” comments from the start. There’s never been a consensus among the PC writing crew about them, although I think we’ve all agreed that, all things considered, we’ve always favored comments that were signed by the authors.

After all, we sign our work so it’s only fair that commenters should sign theirs as well.

Increasingly, we’ve been swamped by hundreds of anonymous commercial “comments,” usually originating from outside the US. They say things like “golly gee, brother, what a great blog you have you are truly amazing what great information and now you should check out my website, www.seriouslyboguscrap.com.” Don’t worry, there isn’t really a “seriouslyboguscrap.com” website.

On sensitive topics like gun control, we get lots of anonymous comments that if they were delivered by snail mail, they’d be done in crayon. We have one anonymous jerk who keeps sending us homophobic comments that we have all decided we will never run.

From now on, the option to post as “anonymous” has been deleted from the menu of choices offered in the pull-down under the blank comment box. If you still want to post a comment, you will have to be signed up with one of the six choices still offered on the menu. Google is pretty easy to do. I have no experience with the others, but I’m sure they are also accessible to most computer users.

You can also send an e-mail with your comment to progressivecharlestown@gmail.com and ask us to post it for you. If you are a whistle-blower, that’s probably the safest route to go anyway.

But with the exception of whistle-blowers, if you want to comment on Progressive Charlestown, you’re going to have to identify yourself.

I post articles every day. I put my name on them. I stand by what I write. If you want to challenge me, come out into the open and state your name – your real name. I have no respect for cowards and sissies who want to take potshots from their hidey-hole.

For some of our readers who file comments using the “anonymous” option but then sign their work in the text, this change in policy will cause some inconvenience. We’ll try to make it work for you – if not by walking you through the registration process, then via the e-mail option.

But we’ve just reached the point where we don’t want to waste time on the commercial posters from Pakistan or the homophobes, racists and snipers from closer to home.