Letters to the Editor Bravo
Wow. SALON is great. It is like going to Borders and having a great cup of cappuccino while browsing the store. I love it. Bravo to Apple and Adobe. I added you to my bookmarks so that the other students here can find you and learn that the Net is not all about games.
James Paige
RIP, Niners
Regarding Tim Green's column, "Why the NFL is still a two-team show," Mr. Green states, "The only way the 49ers don't win the championship is if they're beaten by Dallas, or Steve Young is hurt again."
Being a Packer fan and having just watched said Packers demolish the vaunted 49er offense, I must giggle with glee at Mr. Green's rather arrogant pronouncement. I look forward to seeing what happens this Sunday when the Packers take on what appears to be the only other worthwhile team in the league.
Tony Cagle
University of Washington
Celebrity Trash
I was disappointed to see that your site gives so much space to stuff about celebrities, movies and TV. How can anybody take this stuff personally? Art, books, politics, OK -- even satire. But another celebrity feature we need like a hole in the head.
Mark Pritchard
"Liberal Name-Calling"
I just checked out your site for the first time. I went right to the comics....and I won't be back. I think it's funny how journalists (mostly liberal) can get away with name-calling. I know most of you want to think the last election was just a big mistake, but just in case you didn't notice, conservatives won big -- even with the liberal press against them all the way. I do not believe I am "heartless or greedy." But I do believe it's time we quit borrowing money to pay for televisions, cars and other "essentials" for people who refuse to work.
You may not know people who are on welfare, but I know a few. They are given rent subsidies, food stamps, and "welfare" checks. I work hard for what I have. I LIKE to help the truly needy, and I do so whenever possible. But is it smart to borrow money to help someone else? It's certainly not something I would do. Would you? But our government does it everyday. Smart, huh? Tom Tomorrow said Newt wanted to give "poor" people a tax break so they could buy notebook computers. Well, most "poor" people in this country who work, and thus pay taxes, cannot afford to live at the standard of the "extremely" poor who get government handouts (and pay no taxes)...and drive new cars...have leather coats...oh, and of course those "essential" video games.
Dennis Riffe
Needs Help
When an on-line Net.zine needs "help" buttons, you know there is a serious layout design problem. I find the SALON data structure very obscure. Don't expect to be back often because it's just too hard to get around. Funny... WORD has the same problem. That makes SUCK -> 2/2 in critical references for me. Consider this "rule": Net-site data structure that cannot be intuitively and graphically presented on the first page of a site is excessive and will lead to the failure of the site.
Dr. Ray Hartman
Direct Access to Table Talk?
SALON is a wonderful addition to the Web and I expect that it has a great future. My one disappointment is that your reader comments (Table Talk and the letters to the editor) cannot be easily accessed from the articles to which they refer. Readers want to see the comments right after reading the articles, not in some disconnected chat session.
The ability for readers to attach comments to articles would move online publications far beyond what is available in print. Readers would have much greater faith in an article when they know that any inaccuracies or exaggerations could be pointed out by other readers. Readers would be far more willing to put effort into good online responses if they knew that their contribution would appear with the original article and could therefore influence other readers at the appropriate time.
You may be afraid to open authors to this type of direct criticism and the inevitable stupidities of some posters. However, authors themselves should be encouraged to counter any criticisms, and you should realize that readers are generally on the author's side as the person who has likely devoted the most effort to understanding the topic. In many cases, I expect that you would find readers rising to the author's defense. You could also experiment with some editorial control in which an editor rates responses, and moves pointless or low-quality postings to a reject section (avoid any policy of deleting postings, as this will only revert to the absolute editorial control that drives many readers away from the world of print).
I hope this inspires you to at least do some experimentation.
David Lowe
Thanks for the suggestion. We've always intended to link directly from articles to discussions, and we're working on making this feature a reality. The hurdles are actually technical, not editorial. We want Table Talk to be better integrated with the articles on our site, and aren't at all afraid of having our writers mix it up with our readers. That's our whole idea here.
--The Editors
Please send Letters to the Editor to letters@salon.batnet.com. Include your name and address. Letters may be edited for publication.
You can also send private, not-for-publication messages to SALON at feedback@salon.batnet.com.
And, of course, you can join -- or start -- a discussion in Table Talk.
