My guess is that you are a frustrated English major who does not get a chance to write much.

Your comment incorrectly assumes I was trying to be either a better writer or to look smarter, which may in itself only be saying the same thing in two different ways.

Feel free, though, to say everything I said in your own more economical manner, I’m always open to seeing others demonstrate ways to improve my thinking. If you disagree with something I said, or if I simply said more than you think I should have said, you are also free to hazard those waters avoided in your initial official review.

But yes, PeterK, I actually agree that if people grew some manners, things would be better. As I said on my blog about the exact same subject matter – “The debate can be spirited without having to affix the word “mean” before it.”

Most blogs income is contingent on the amount of traffic it brings in via advertising bucks. Many have a certain slant that range from the Huffington Post to Jonah Goldberg.

With FB, any income made from the blog, I assume, is icing on the cake. So FB is editor driven and it seems to be having a hard time balancing the freedom of the commenter’s and writers with the primary source of income for the magazine.

I enjoy the openness and honesty that you and Glenn Hunter have on the blog. While I don’t agree with many of the thoughts, I admire people who speak their mind without

regard for a potential verbal backlash. In most cases Wicks views are pretty much to the right. It seems that the rest of the gang is trying to play ball somewhere in the middle of the road. I get the feeling they are not willing to wear their heart on their sleeve.

So, are the editors of FB fearful of upsetting potential advertisers by making statements or comments from the heart? Are they just trying to keep a middle ground? I would assume that the readers of D are far more right leaning than left and if so, it would only be natural for the articles to flow that direction. Politically, Dallas is a much divided city, just like most of our nation. Maybe this is where some of the commenting conflict comes in.

While I made the initial mistake of being outspoken in an obtrusive way (I am a professional bridge burner) and lost my seat at the table of love. I had hoped that FB blog as having the potential to help bring the left, the right and yes, even the Libertarians together for the common goal of our city. Now that President Bush is living amongst us, the local blogosphere will most likely become more contaminated.

As a connoisseur of blogosphere regurgitation, I enjoy reading FB. It is, in my opinion, the most conflicted of all blogs. It makes for interesting reading. I do wish that if the editors are going to spew a little venom at various folks, that they be amenable to taking in a little themselves. Sometimes the very issues that FB condemns are the same they are guilty of. If someone points this out, they become worse that persona non gratis, they become the pariah.

This city is big enough and cool enough to handle all sorts, including clueless left wing nut jobs like me, or extreme right wing nutcases like ___________(fill in the blank)

BTW, the new Bethany blog is really awesome. Somehow she has it rigged to shoot lazers out when I try to post…………kidding….(;0 and other assorted emotocons) oops (sp?)

It’s this kind of censorship that has me so confused. I understand patrolling your blog for trolls, but what FB is doing doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to it.

Bethany we (I mean those of us of an older generation) call it being respectful. No need for rules since if you have rules folks will point out “but you didn’t say I couldn’t do X.”
My mother used to tell me “if you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything.” Now that doesn’t mean one should keep silent, but you can have a discussion without accusing the other side of “hatred” or calling them names. its why we call it a ‘discussion’

I’ll be glad to ‘listen’ to another person’s POV, I will point out where I disagree, but pls don’t act like the old SNL skit “jane you ignorant slut…”

I used to construct unnecessary long-winded sentences like yours when I was in college. Upon official review it did not make me a better writer or look smarter.

I think that’s what’s lacking with Frontburner – Terms of Service. A clearly defined set of standards would at least be something they could point to – even if it’s a CYS thing – when they edit a comment out. And editing a comment out would be better, IMO. It would leave a placemarker that said, “This person commented, but we deleted it because it violated our TOS.”