A sad commentary on blogging life

By DAN ROSS

Once again there is a large rise in what I find to be very disappointing comments being submitted to a number of NapaValleyRegister.com articles.

The comments are exposing how some people in our online community cannot resist turning so many issues into ones of illegal immigration, and using those comments to fire out racist comments and ones containing hate speech.

A NapaValleyRegister.com article explaining what Swine Flu precautions to take resulted in a large number of deleted comments because the commenters are trying to claim illegal immigrants are the cause of this flu outbreak or are dramatically spreading this flu.

Enough of the hate speech and racist comments, folks.

Are people frustrated with illegal immigration into the U.S. and Napa county specifically. Oh yeah they are, just look at the Register.com comments to any article dealing with illegal immigration-type issues.

Turning any possible article, however, into an illegal immigrant debate just doesn't work. The comment guidelines posted here includes as the very first guideline, "Stay on topic," while three of the first six items listed in what causes comments to be deleted include, going off-topic, hate speech, and racially-insensitive comments."

People sending through such comments are receiving replies from here stating that any further racist or hate speech-like comments submitted shall result in an automatic seven day suspension of their accounts.

The same messages are going out to commenters who routinely include personal attacks in the comments they provide, as there is (once again) a huge increase in personal attacks in comment submissions to this Web site.

Are there times the comments get through? Yep. We receive about 500 comments daily and try to post them as quick as possible so you can have as close to a real-time discussion as possible. We do mistakenly let some through in our haste to keep the dialogue going, so when so see something you deem inappropriate, send a comment along through the comments section on via e-mail to me.

As we state in the preamble to the comment guidelines, "The goal of the story comments section at NapaValleyRegister.com is to have an open, thought-provoking, civil community forum for all issues." We go through periods of time where the commenters accelerate attempts to push comment guidelines as far as possible. Each time we send out e-mail requests to these individuals asking them to change their behaviors. This time, we've abandoned the requests and are informing commenters it is change now or be suspended.

Enough is enough. Play by the rules or be banned from playing the game.

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