For those of you who’ve missed it, there have been a barrage of comments online questioning my own and The Red & Black’s stance toward Greek organizations, our decisions to edit or not edit letters and how we handle online comments on stories.

Let’s address the easy one first: I’m not anti-Greek, and neither is the paper. We employ Greeks, I’m good friends with Greeks and as we wrote Monday’s follow-up story about Ry Mercado’s retraction of hazing, I e-mailed Interfraternity Council President Trevor Brightwell several times with updates about what we knew.

Some have brought up articles I wrote as crime reporter in 2007, which said the Greek affiliations of those arrested, to prove I’m anti-Greek. That is the editor-in-chief’s decision and was not mine as the reporter. If you note, when I took up the editor-in-chief spot in spring semester, that stopped. Policy was changed, and we don’t print any organization or club affiliation of any kind with crime arrests. I’ll have nothing of people calling me anti-Greek, and I’m satisfied the leaders in charge know how I feel.

The next point: Rachel McGee’s letter to the editor. I assure you we didn’t use “sic” with malicious intent. When we received her letter critiquing our credibility in reporting the initial story about hazing, we decided the multiple misspellings transparently spoke her own credibility. It’s true that we edit some letters and not others, and this one we thought was a journalistic decision. You may disagree, as our online editor Marc McAfee does below. However, the decision was made, and it is done.

Because some of you are searching for uniformity in the way we handle letters to the editor, we’ve created a new policy effective today. All letters will be printed as is. They will not be edited for spelling or grammar. You are responsible for what you send us.

The final question: What happened on our comment boards Monday night, and what does that mean?

In the evening, a person claiming to be a Red & Black staffer commented that we had used “sic” maliciously, laughed at McGee’s letter and were anti-Greek. All of these claims are unfounded. The commenter identifying him or herself as the “mole” and “Snide” doesn’t exist, and new comments from “Snide” used IP addresses in different states – including Kansas.

The comments in question were removed hours after the original “mole” post because staffers were responding online. Our adviser, who is the one responsible for managing comments on the Web site, disabled the message board to prevent staffers from airing internal grievances online. That’s not where it should happen.

Unfortunately, this looked like we were trying to hide the comments or sweep them under the rug, when really it was an internal matter. Anyone who has read our opinions page or comments online will see that we’re lambasted daily. I’ve dealt with my share of personal threats and attacks, and in this business, we must let people say what they will – no matter how baseless some charges may be. These comments are not removed. We print every negative letter we receive. We’re not afraid of your comments. In fact, we welcome them.

Some online commenters saw the disabled forum as “censorship” or a violation of the First Amendment. Most professional newspapers – the Washington Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution included – do not allow such online forums on their Web sites because of the volatility that message boards invite. We at The Red & Black provide an online forum for our readers because we think generating dialogue is more important than keeping it clean.

But a few anonymous commenters have abused this extension of our opinions page – so we have adopted a new policy.

Our Web site no longer allows anonymous comments.

If you have a point to prove, stand behind it. Leave your name.

- Carolyn Crist is the editor-in-chief of The Red & Black.