Mailbox revival

The Red & Black has disabled online message boards to keep dialogue clean

Kanye West was the final straw.

We, The Red & Black editors, recently changed our policy to disallow anonymous comments on our Web site.

Anonymous commenting has long been a hotbed of problems for us, along with every other newspaper across the country. After an unnamed commentator posed as a Red & Black staff member several weeks ago, we decided it was time for a change.

In theory, the new policy seemed flawless.

Until Kanye West began commenting on the site last week. Although we would like to think otherwise, we highly doubt the hip hop mogul was perusing our site.

So commentators wasted little time in cheating the new system as our technology isn’t as smart as the West impersonators out there.

No big surprise there.

Unless one of our editors verifies every online comment at all hours of the day and night, The Red & Black cannot enforce its new policy.

So we were left with one alternative: to remove all online message boards.

Hence, our newest policy.

The Red & Black editors, adviser and publisher struggled with this decision in a series of meetings last week.

We flat out dislike the idea of eliminating any kind of forum for our readers.

But we see no other solution to tempering the caustic conversations invited online by an electronic veil of anonymity.

We want to encourage rigorous debate among our readers, and we want to hear your criticisms of the jobs we’re doing.

We also want to support our young reporters, who cannot submit their clips to potential employers because an anonymous commentator has lambasted their stories with a string of profanities.

So we must demand constructive conversations – and the only way to do that, judging by our mailbox, is if we ask you to sign your names.

We are in the business of giving the community a voice. We strive to give every one of our readers a space in our pages where they can be heard.

And we are hoping this decision will turn up your volume. Thus, the mailbox comeback.

Back in the ’90s, The Red & Black’s mailbox absolutely surged with letters to the editor. But letters have dwindled as online commenting gained momentum – even though, to this day, online comments are read only by a tiny fraction of the hundreds of people who read our mail.

If you want to be heard, submit a letter to the editor. It’s easy: follow the instructions on our opinions page and send the letter to opinions@randb.com. Or just visit the Web site, randb.com, and click on the “Letters to the Editor” link in the top right corner of the home page.

We will run every single letter we receive – in print or online.

Be heard. Write to us. Sign your name. Be part of the dialogue that matters.

- The Red & Black editors