Letters to the editor [LWN.net]

When LWN switched over to the new site a few weeks ago, some of our readers worried that the comment posting facility would bring about the end of the Letters to the Editor page. After all, why bother writing a letter when it is easy to attach comments directly to articles? That was not a consequence that we had feared, but now we are beginning to wonder - no letters to the editor have been received this week. Thus, there is no letters page in this Weekly Edition.

For the most part, we have been pleased with how the comments feature has worked out so far. There have not been huge numbers of comments, but most of those we have seen have been of high quality. Our trust in our readers has proved itself justified - most of the time.

We did not want to drop the Letters to the Editor page, however. The Letters page has, over the years, been a valuable source of feedback and a place for LWN readers to express their opinions. So we hope that this week's lull proves to be a temporary thing; perhaps all of our letter writers are at OLS this week. If you have an opinion on something that you would like to see published, please do not hesitate to send it our way; letters should be sent to letters@lwn.net

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Letters to the editor

Posted Jun 27, 2002 1:50 UTC (Thu) by BogusUser ((unknown), #651) [Link]

Letters to the editor involve delayed gratitude.

When I want to discuss my numerous patents, my years as a mainframe guy, my insights into the state of the Linux community (which are based on my respected status as a leading, karma-certified commentator in numerous discussion areas on several sites), and my entertaining stories, I don't want to wait for others to be able to see what I've written and I don't want to submit my writing to some so-called politically correct editor who will ruin my words in the name of readability or space.

I will never write a letter to the editor, and I suspect people who do don't have lives. I have a life and I use the convenient talkback features of sites I visit.

Haven't taken the time to say "welcome back to the scene" to Dave W., lately, either. So "welcome back, Dave." Linux Today wasn't the same without you, and now that you're here I bet LT's days are numbered, which is fine by me.

Letters to the editor

Posted Jun 27, 2002 2:43 UTC (Thu) by dave (guest, #7) [Link]

Thanks, dinotrac. I appreciate the kind words and it's good to hear from you again.

best,
dave

Letters to the editor

Posted Jun 27, 2002 11:09 UTC (Thu) by BogusUser ((unknown), #2307) [Link]

I have to agree with dinotrac. I've been reading LWN since the beggining,
and I've never participated in the discussion. It feels quite exciting
actually - I don't have a /. account, but I can imagine a higher quality
of discussion developing here, (in less volume - also a good thing).

Having said that, I can't think of anything interesting to say :-)

High quality discussion

Posted Jun 27, 2002 12:14 UTC (Thu) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

I can imagine a higher quality of discussion developing here

I think the absence of an `anonymous cowherd' class has a lot to do with that. Still, ACs occasionally contribute very insightful things. I guess the other /. ACs are just there to herd-protect the valuable ones...

The scourge of the anonymous coward

Posted Jun 27, 2002 12:57 UTC (Thu) by NZheretic (guest, #409) [Link]

One plea, if you wish to see the quality of the comments remain at such a high level, then please consider requiring everyone to pre-register with a valid email address before making a comment. You might even consider not allowing free-email services such as hotmail and yahoo-mail.

On registration, you should send an initial email to the above address containing a password to enter before allowing a comment to be posted.

There is no reason to display the email address in the comments, unless the person elects to ( opt-in not opt-out ), but IMO requiring the act of just providing a valid email address will greatly help in maintaining a higher average quality of commentary than that such that is now found at slashdot.

The scourge of the anonymous coward

Posted Jun 27, 2002 16:17 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

Are you sure Amazon doesn't have a patent on the technique of sending out a continue-your-registration email?

Letters to the editor

Posted Jun 27, 2002 20:52 UTC (Thu) by faramir (subscriber, #2327) [Link]

The new comments sections are in my opinion one of the worst aspects
of the new LWN layout. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I like
newspapers, letters to the editor, etc. I also read/skim slashdot, kuro5hin,
advogato, etc. On-line discussion systems almost always suffer from moderately
to extremely high noise to signal ratios even with various systems to
try to rate people's messages. In my opinion, automated systems are not
good enough yet to handle this job well. I believe that LWN's letters to the editor
section was almost always worth reading because it was moderated by someone
whose job was to make careful selections. I also believe that the difficulty
of sending a letter to the editor also increased the quality of the
messages. It is human nature to put more effort into a letter
which is going to take some effort to publish. I know I'm spending less
effort writing this then a previous message which LWN published
a few months ago...

Delightfully Ironic

Posted Jun 28, 2002 1:29 UTC (Fri) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]

That's what I think about the fact that this lament (about comments drowning out LTE) got more comments than anything else in some weeks.

I do, indeed, think that that's a likely outcome, and I think it's a shame, too.

*My* approach -- inspired by a comment that I wrote sometime last week; half way through, I had to stop and decide whether to turn it into an LTE or not -- would be either (more labor intensive) have someone sift the weeks comments looking for stuff that rises to the top, or (easier to scam) put a checkbox on the submission page that says "Please consider this comment for the Letters page".

I think the latter would work out ok...

Delightfully Ironic

Posted Jun 28, 2002 19:48 UTC (Fri) by BogusUser ((unknown), #1588) [Link]

I think this is a good suggestion. Yes, it causes more overhead on the part of the Editors (and so should only be undertaken if it doesn't adversely impact the quality of the rest of the site) but occasionally the LTE section has some nice stuff. Perhaps instead of being called "Letters To The Editor" it can be called "Comments of the Week" or something.

FWIW - I'm a LWN reader _because_ of the the fact that this site has editors (unlike some other *cough*slashdot*cough* sites that have people who call themselves editors but who really just click "yes" or "no" buttons) who take the time to write up original content and make sure that the level of professionalism on the site is maintained. So to the commenter who thinks that the job of an editor is to censor and alter the content being submitted - poop - it's the job of an editor to make sure a) the content is accurate, b) words are spelled correctly, and c) the site isn't inundated with "Natalie Portman" trolls, all of which add up to a very professional site that's worthy of being read by anyone from geek programmer at home to CTO of a Fortune 500 who wants to keep up with what's going on in the Linux community.

Letters to the editor

Posted Jun 28, 2002 2:41 UTC (Fri) by tompoe (guest, #9) [Link]

Hi: If you let the LTE drop, then I'm left with trying to figure out a good way to catch up on the comments that are posted day1, day2, day3 . . .

The LTE section provides an opportunity to review the comments to articles from folks over a 7 day period. Or, at least that was my assumption.

I vote to leave the LTE section for the following reason. From time to time, there may be good information offered through this section that might otherwise be missed in the article comments. That alone, seems to me to be enough reason to save the section and maintain it.

Now, having said that, I shall compose a Letter To The Editor all about my exciting project, which needs one "champion" from each community in America to step up and volunteer. If it helps, I'd like to offer that Hollings, the man who introduced the CBDTPA on behalf of Hollywood, declined our invitation to join our Advisory Board as it might create a "potential conflict of interest". Ya just gotta love the guy! Talk about motivation. We've got it!
Thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
Open Studios
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/

Letters to the editor: yes!

Posted Jun 28, 2002 22:35 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

(This comment is on the orignal article, not the comment to whichit is
attached -- I could not figure out how to attach a comment to the
original).

I'm glad you brought up the letters vs comments issue because I've been
rather concerned about it. It has not been clear to me whether the
editor still welcomed letters. If you intend to have a letters section,
you should make that clear in every edition, and you might also clarify
what you see as the difference between a letter and a comment.

Comments don't work for me, because I see only the comments from people
who read the issue before me, and only the people who read after me see
mine.

I write a letter to the editor when I see something in an article or letter
that is in error or an important viewpoint is omitted. If roughly the
same people who saw the original won't see my response, there's no point
in my writing.

Comments can actually provide the editor with a valuable tool to improve the
letters section. If you make the letters section an editorial selection
from among the comments, then you 1) get more letters, and 2) make more
efficient use of your readers' time by sorting out redundant or
ingermane comments or overly long ones, all the while not having to worry
about stomping on other peoples' expression, because the comments are still
there for everyone to see.

I'd like to see a checkbox on the comment form for "OK to publish" and in
that case also a place to enter more formal identification of the author.

By the way, as the system stands, it is much easier for me to send an
email than to comment via the web. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but
I always have to click twice to see any comments (once to
get another copy of the article, with comment links a the bottom, and
then again for each comment -- quite slow). I have to log in before I
can post a comment, and then go back to the home page and navigate back
to where I was, and often there is no "post a comment" link or the link
is broken. As you can see from the opening of this comment, I was unable
to figure out after much trying how to post this comment properly.