One of the goals of the America's Web site is to foster a community for our readers, friends--even our critics. To that end, we have decided to revisit our comments policy. As of today, comments for blogs and articles will no longer be vetted before being posted. We hope this will allow for a more lively dialogue among our readers.
As part of our new policy, we are now asking our correspondents to register with our site before posting comments. Registration is simple (and free!), and we suspect most of our regular web readers are already signed up. (Note to subscribers: you are not required to register. If you haven't done so already, simply enter your subscription number on our login page.) By requiring registration, we hope to prevent random spam attacks, as well as cut down on some of the vitriolic commentary that most often comes from anonymous readers who supply fake email addresses.
We will still ask readers to provide their first and last names, especially for article comments, since sometimes these are used for the letters page in the print edition. We will still be checking comments daily, and will remove any comments we deem inappropriate. If you encounter such a comment, please email us at webeditor@americamagazine.org. We still aim to foster a civil conversation among readers of our blogs and articles, and we ask that you help us in this endeavor.
Finally, a thank you to all of our regular readers and correspondents for helping to make America's Web site a vital destination for news and commentary. Our readership is steadily growing, and we hope you will continue to be part of the conversation.
Tim Reidy
