For what ever reason they have chosen. The Olympian has closed the LTE Comments.
I'll do my best to keep up with the moderation and get your comments posted as quickly as possible, but since we already had party crashers, I'm still requiring all posts to be registered.
Comment on!!!
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3 comments:
The Olympian is free to do pretty much as they please but it a little transparency would be nice. I have the same criticism of most blogs including my fav Olyblog, although the good folks over there are more open than most. Or maybe I've been there long enough to know how to navigate and opine without getting censored.
The Centraila Chronicle used to host the Lewis County Buzz, a community blog structured somewhat like Olyblog, but with tighter moderation. The Buzz was a great way for me to stay in touch with the doins in Lewis county, a part of this great state I have a strange affection for. There were about a couple dozen regulars who shared good humored gossip and jokes, gathered weather data, reported in real time house fires and auto accidents, shared jam receipts, offered appliances for sale of for free, and talked about their gardens, their kids and their livestock. During the Dec 2007 flood it probably saved communities if not lives. All in all it was a sweet, iconoclastic and relevant slice of life in Lewis county.
As with all anonymous electronic communication, there were a few misanthropes who ejaculated their inner 10 year old all over the screen. After months of repeated public warnings from the moderator about the same issues the Olympian is struggling with, the Cronk gave up. It closed the place down after a particularly libelous spat over a radio station talk show. Or at least that was the excuse. The end of the Buzz was a sad day. I see a similar 'solution' on the horizon for the Olympian.
I believe the Olympian puts time and money into Pluck comments for the hit count it creates which makes the Ad department happy and pays Matt Batchledor's salary, but this is short sighted. The current problems with the comments section points up a larger issue, that of 'Old' media adopting and adapting to 'New' media tools.
The Olympian has a large and devoted group of people who provide literally hundreds of inch columns daily for free. Admittedly most of it is crap or worse, but everyday nuggets of wisdom, humanity, humor and good old fashioned journalism manage to float to the surface of the sludge. If the good people of the Olympian asked me, better yet paid me, I'd suggest they need to get a handle on the citizen generated copy that floods in, and with an editor or two, it could become a fresh and interesting element in their reportage.
The Olympian has the depth and breadth in our community to create the kind of citizen journalism Olyblog aspires to.
BTW, My idea is copywrited and reserved. :)
George Le Masurier, are you reading this? Call me. I can turn shit into gold for ya.
There were about 120 comments, starting out relatively on-topic, but then increasingly slipping off-topic until they were closed sometime after 1:00 PM. I'd read only about half when they did it, and it was evident that commenters weren't going to pull back and start following the rules.
My 2 cents:
It's impossible to keep STRICTLY on "topic" - especially when the contect of the letters is the same old dull stuff - "lesbians stole Christmas", "Obama lied", and "everyone is wrong about the Isthmus"
As long as it doesn't DEVOLVED into the shit that Renonsence Man started with me about "you sucked at Hannah's open mic" (as you know, I wasn't there). Note that the same asshole make the same flatulent sounds.
Here's a bottom line - Mark Wood and Chuck from Tacoma either ARE Sondra or have their head up her ass so far that they can taste what she had for breakfast. Sondra has ratholed the the name and site of this blog for two years and either spread the word to the only two friends she has or everyone is talking from the same orifice.
You'll note that Wood took a shot, as did Chuck (so that "Sondra" remains clean)....but then there is the ever-changing RM, Alex, et al.
Sondra has been slapped around many times by The Olympian and she hates to lose. She is just the type to pull a scorched earth routine like this and the push the blame on me, or anyone else she can.
Meanwhile, this blog stays open and availabe to all who wish to comment.
I will be gone for awhile tonight, so I'll not be able to release posts from moderation until I get home. Once the assholes quit playing games, I'll go back to open posting.
Sorry for the profanity, but sometimes "poop" doesn't emit the right feeling.
BTW, Anon...I miss Chronline's Buzz...it was a great format.
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