I am ok with the voting thumbs up/down per se, but I did not like comments being hidden if they got enough thumbs down votes. Especially because often it had nothing at all to do with the quality of the comments, but with the political opinions expressed, or the identity of the commenter. I was posting for about a week or two before the election, and the alliances were pretty clearly drawn between commenters when it came to thumbs up or down. Sometimes, I wouldn't even read an entire comment, before giving it thumbs up or down.

I actually got kicked off of Area Voices a week or two before the election, even though I -- to my knowledge -- did not violate their stated policies concerning comments. My crime was that I criticized a report about Rick Nolan disrupting the Senior Expo at the DECC. I thought the article was poorly sourced and shoddy journalism with an obvious agenda. I backed up my opinions with evidence from the Senior Expo's own website and from other media reports about the incident. Someone at the DNT did not like that. The same comment that got me kicked off of Area Voices was published in The Reader. 

My attitude is that if the DNT is going to allow comments on their stories, they should be prepared to deal with readers doing exactly what I did. I am really glad they took down the comments section. It was divisive and accomplished nothing, really, except to piss people off against each other.

I wouldn't be surprised, spy1. Also, at least where the DNT is concerned, there was a little problem concerning confidentiality concerning the identities of commenters and other information that should have remained privy only to DNT staffers. I know of two cases concerning two different Duluth women where confidential information about their participation on Area Voices was obtained and used by someone else who participated on Area Voices and also maintains a local "political" blog that's basically a crappy rip-off of the Drudge Report. Liability indeed.

I was listening to KUWS Friday, they were airing a program about Larry Oakes, with journalists Dominic Papatola, Georgia Swing, and Laurie Hertzel. If I heard correctly, Georgia Swing said there are currently 10 reporters on staff at the DNT. Like spy1 says, when you have limited staff and resources, why waste them on something like Area Voices?

Chickonen may be onto something... OK, so last week, it's bad enough that the DNT publishes the non-story about Jim Fetzer pissing people off with his latest conspiracy theories. And then Sunday, they must be the only "legitimate" print media outlet in the USA to give Fetzer space on the op-ed page to write about his insane theories concerning Sandy Hook. The dead body of the alleged assassin stored overnight in the school? Actors playing bereaved parents? Murdered principals perhaps not murdered, because they're calling the local media?  Israeli death squads roaming the Connecticut countryside? I think the DNT hit a new low by running Fetzer's op-ed. Jesus Christ.

One can't expect people to spend 24/7 on their computers, interacting with people they would never associate with in real life, i.e. "crazies, deniers, haters, and such," just so people from outside Duluth don't get the wrong impression of our fair city. I say it's the responsibility of the DNT to either moderate Area Voices in such a way that the crazies, haters, and deniers don't take over, like there is a consensus that they did, or to just cut out comments altogether. 

The moderation of Area Voices was a joke.

In.Dog.Neato, I happen to love Rosemarie Mitchell's musings, her LTEs are classic and I wish the DNT would publish her more often.

Oh, look what I found! The Mitchells' LTE was the subject of a Strib blog! 

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/167065645.html