Let Your Thoughts Fly Online, But Don’t Forget Good Manners

Your mother probably told you it was dangerous to bring up religion or politics in polite conversation.

By now you've figured out on your own that other topics, such as race or sex, can quickly turn a friendly discussion into a rhetorical free-for-all.

Yet every day on our Web sites, TimesDispatch.com and inRich.com, we invite readers to comment on those subjects, along with other hot-button issues such as smoking in restaurants, gun laws, abortion, domestic violence, and just about any incendiary subject you can name.

Do the sparks fly in our online forums? You bet. Do some posters cross the line with offensive language and personal attacks in the heat of a passionate debate? Occasionally.

So why do we invite reader reaction on almost every story we publish?

As a newspaper, we believe in free speech. We've always published letters to the editor, even when the writers criticize our methods and motives.

The Internet gives readers a faster and more direct route to express their opinions on the stories we write, as well as to support or challenge the views expressed by other readers. It lets us create a marketplace of ideas in a community forum. That's why you'll see invitations in print and links online to "Post a Comment."

You'll need to register and provide an e-mail address, but you can post anonymously and we will respect your privacy. We ask in return that you avoid offensive language and personal attacks.

There's a complete list of posting rules on the "Terms and Conditions" link below every online article.

Under every reader post, there's a link to "Report Inappropriate Comment." People let us know when the debate gets out of hand, and editors step in to evaluate the content of the post.

We allow our readers a good bit of leeway to express themselves on emotional topics. Unlike letters to the editor, online comments are never edited. But we can and will delete a post or series of posts when readers pull out the flamethrowers. We've rarely had to close an entire thread because of bad behavior by a few vituperative posters, but it has happened.

Not long ago, one poster tried to discredit another by finding and posting personal records from a local court. Stalking and harassment are strictly forbidden. Spammers have tried to use our reader-reaction forums to advertise commercial sites, and those posts are quickly deleted.

Name-calling is unfortunately routine between "Republicons" and "Dimocrats," but we draw the line at four-letter words, even when a couple of the letters are replaced by strategic hyphens.

Usually readers who get carried away will calm down after having posts deleted and receiving an e-mail warning from an editor. A few who have repeatedly broken the rules after being warned have been banned, by blocking the computer they use to post.

We think public discussion of the work we do as journalists and the topics we address in the newspaper and online is healthy. We know readers and viewers want to talk back to us and to each other, because the number of people reading and posting reader reaction continues to grow.

On the TimesDispatch.com home page, you'll find a list of the stories that have drawn the most comments in the past 48 hours. Often the posts run on for page after page, ranging from a few heated words to ponderous essays footnoted with links to other stories and Web pages.

You may love or hate what you read in the

Richmond Times-Dispatch in print or online. You may enjoy or be appalled at the comments you'll find from other readers on TimesDispatch.com and inRich.com.

Chances are you won't be bored.

John Witt is multimedia editor. Contact him at (804) 649-6824 or .