Sunday, December 03, 2006

Meet the neighbors

For months now, I've been watching the comments posted on news stories. Really what started my interest was the Shreveport mayoral election.

I worked on election night and watched as people told us what was really on their minds, and quite frankly, I was disappointed with a lot of them. Many of the posts had nothing to say but what a tragedy it was a black man had been elected as mayor and how the city was doomed. Some of the posts were so offensive they had to be pulled from the Web site.

But I've sensed a bit of a shift since then. As the political furor has died down, it seems the story comments have become a bit of a neighborhood.

As you scroll through the comments, you see familiar names. Some folks offer serious insight and heartfelt feelings while others visit to offer a little joke and add their two cents.

Comments are now my favorite part of a story. I like to know what people think about the work done in this office and what's going on around town.

So if you've got something to say, feel free to join in. There's always room for one more.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let me guess... the ugliness was anonymous. One of my favorite blogs has a policy that points out there are good comments and bad comments. And I quote "Bad comments are almost always anonymous ... because negative commenters are almost always too cowardly to stand behind their opinions."

Melinda Williams said...

Actually, most of the negative commentors did have screen names, but their profiles were pretty much empty.