A Word About Commenting On Posts Here...

As with every election season, posts here, because of their tendency to be political in nature, are often commented upon. Our attitude has always been that comments on posts here are not only welcome, but are actually encouraged. 

However,  If you're not willing to sign your name to your comments, I'm not willing to publish them. 

This isn't about censorship, or about my choosing to ignore anything that disagrees with what I've written here. It's simply about commenters having the courage of their convictions, and the willingness to own their words. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We've all seen the rude behavior and hatefulness spawned by people hiding behind anonymous screen names on the Kitsap Sun site. While the paywall has discouraged some of that, there's still a fair amount of it going on. The Sound Publishing papers make commenters sign in to Facebook before they can comment as a way to keep the discussion civil, which I think is a pretty good solution. Unfortunately, since this blog is hosted by Google, that option isn't available to us.

What has prompted this post, is a rash of unsigned comments on some recent posts that I actually would have liked to publish, but won't because "Anonymous" isn't anyone's name. I believe that if people are forced to own the things they say, the quality of the discussion increases — as does its civility.

I hope you understand and agree. So in the future, sign your name and email address (which we don't publish or use in any other way) for verification, and look for your opinion to be published. It's just that simple.