An Examination of Community Comment
June 1, 2008

Good morning, Netizens...

This morning, like most mornings, I am sitting in the Great Chair overlooking the Virtual Ballroom at 3:00 AM, an hour most people would find more suitable for sleeping than writing. We just passed an anniversary last week, and like all the various experiments I have undertaken in my life, I figure it is time to assess and perhaps reflect on not only where we stand today, but examine our collective history.

I wrote my first official message for the Virtual Ballroom on March 24, 2008, and I quietly allowed that three month anniversary date to pass without comment last month. Nobody, myself included, ever figured Community Comment would make it this far. That is because Community Comment, much like the Virtual Ballroom and Espresso Bar, operates without any visible means of support and, for the most part, free of any of the heavy-handed oversight of the Editorial Board of the Spokesman-Review, through whose auspices we continue to operate. In fact, in looking back over 90 days of continuous operation, I cannot recall anytime that a member of the Spokesman-Review has once posted a message in our blog. In the past I have sent e-mail messages about technical issues about the administration of Community Comment to the entire Editorial Board, including Editor Steve Smith, and I can count the number of responses I have received on one hand. So it is not as if I belong in the “inner circle” of journalists that truly administer the Spokesman-Review. I am not a SR employee, nor do I speak for them. Hell, they do not talk to me on a frequent enough basis to make it worth mention.

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