B² editorial: Anonymous comments bad business

I posted a highly entertaining article yesterday penned by Jay Purdy that described his experience at Obama’s inauguration. Sadly, the post prompted several spurious comments from readers named “Anonymous,” a surname that is very popular on the Internet. I deleted comments that did not advance Jay’s story.

For now, Linglestown Gazette is set up to allow anonymous comments since the number of comments posted on the blog still is pretty low, making it easy to keep tabs on them.

But, let me make it crystal clear that anonymous comments are bad business because readers who post them have no accountability for their views and allegations. The lack of accountability oftentimes results in personal attacks against other readers. This is unacceptable in my book.

My goal with Linglestown Gazette is to provide an upstanding source of news and community info about Linglestown and Lower Paxton Twp, and accountability is a mark of all trusted journalistic enterprises.

So, those of you who opt to remain in the closet, please keep your comments clean and out of the gutter.

In saying this, note that my goal is NOT to stifle comments – nothing could be further from the truth. It’s all about creating a situation in which readers will feel comfortable expressing pro and con opinions that thoughtfully add to the content that shows up on Linglestown Gazette.