40 South News has lost an advertiser, mainly because, the former advertiser said he doesn’t like its policy of accepting anonymous comments. I said most comments are constructive, and slanderous comments aren’t allowed, but he disagreed.
40 South will continue to allow anonymous comments because I believe most commenters are sincere and mean well, and it provides a place for opinions to be aired on community topics that otherwise might not be. That said, I’ll continue to watch comments as they come in (to date, 8,754 of them), but it’s not always black and white. Civility is the best rule.
Let’s let this be a reminder that any one can contribute to 40 South News. Many have made a one-time donation and some contribute monthly — thanks to all! Donate online here.
Gone for a weekend and I miss everything. Must have been a doozie, I never read anything nasty on here.
40 South News has received donations from both sides of Hanley Road recently. Thanks to all.
Most of the who’s who of regular 40 South commenters have come out on this one. Never seen so many that stay in their lanes of B’wood or MW commenting in a single article. Where is Maureen though?
Wustin Jyse , I hope you are not reading 40South without donating?
Doug Miner gives us all the opportunity to speak our minds and attempt to start conversations on issues both important and, sometimes, silly. I never knew the Patch but I hope 40 South News continues its vital role in informing the community with news of local interest for a long, long time.
As a former community news reporter for 20 years in New England and elsewhere, I think Doug does an overwhelmingly good job. He appears to function primarily as a one-man enterprise operating in an age and environment that is not only frequently hostile to truth-telling, but also is characterized by equal opportunity for any yahoo to leave endless commentary, however noxious or ill-considered. I look forward to my 40southnews feed each day, and I thank you, Doug, for your honest and best efforts.
Second.
40 South: You’re a gem, a key piece of Maplewood’s revivified spirit. Don’t change a thing.
I suspect the offending anonymous comment had something to do with the advertiser in question. Just a wild guess.
I don’t see Duggan Pubs as a sponsor down the right side column. You could make up for the sponsor Doug lost. Be a Hero for all of us!
Thanks
Doug for all that you do!
Loved you with patch and have read 40 south news since you started it!
I’m offended that some people find 40 South News offensive. Lighten up and play nice, or you’re welcome to read one of the other millions of websites. Keep up the great work Doug!
I think that 40SouthNews does provide a valuable service to our community, however I also believe that the work that Doug does could be done with more integrity. There have been numerous times when individuals (anonymous or not) have commented untrue things on a 40SouthNews article and Doug does not do the due diligence to fact-check if the statements made are true, yet then goes on to report them as truth.
This is the problem I have with 40SouthNews. If this can be addressed, I think the site would really improve overall and help our community better receive fair and unbiased news reports. I hope you all are not offended by my constructive criticism.
Oh I forgot to adjourn the Mr. Completely Monday morning board meeting, you see I was in Executive Session so I could anonymously comment earlier.
I enjoy reading 40 South–appreciate the good, overlook the bad as best I can, and honor the work involved–
Getting rid of anonymous comments does little good. Even with full Facebook account linkage the Post Dispatch comments area is still a cesspool of extremists with outlandish statements and incredible hate.
It doesn’t matter if people are talking about race relations, elections or the Blues defense line combinations: even with full comment linking it’s still a madhouse.
Wow! I am just amazed constantly by all the different viewpoints (and comments) 40 South elicits. 40 South is my go-to source for current local news. Thank you for publishing this, and allowing me to feel free to comment. You are much appreciated.
I also love the work that Doug does for us….I wish I had the money to donate…..I enjoy reading and replying to the articles, if I so desire….I also look for it for the local news…Thank you for all you do Doug.
I don’t think anyone in their right mind actually assigns blame to random advertisers when they read comments they dislike or disagree with. This is just a sad, misguided understanding of how the internet and advertising work these days. I’m happy with how Doug is running the site. It seems to me that those who stand to gain most from a change to the comments would have been McDonalds and all of the sainted politicians in Brentwood.
Too bad for them because I’ll still be reading here every day, their loss. I check this site every day, the pulse will sit around for a week or two before I read it , only picked up the sprit once.
To the people hating on 40 South, why do you even read it and comment if it’s so terrible? Seems like the vitriol isn’t coming from Doug.
To Doug, thank you for 40 South. I love it and I know many other people who also love it!
40 South provides an amazing service to this community. Knowing what is going on, especially in terms of announcements of new businesses helps the new businesses and it helps citizens feel connected b/c ‘we too get to feel like we can know and can get excited about the new businesses soon to appear’.
40 south consistently presents “objectively” any controversial business topics that are good for the citizens to think about and make their own decision.
Finally, anyone who has met Doug Miner knows that he gives much of his life to this, b/c he has been a journalist and it’s in his blood. Also, those who know Doug, know that he is not living ‘the good life’ off of money derived from this website. He is living a very ‘downsized’ lifestyle to keep this community service going.
I *guarantee* this: if Doug were to stop providing this service, NO ONE would step forward to “cash in” on this big money maker. If it was such a great money maker, wouldn’t common sense tell you that others would have already tried to compete with their own service?
Thank you Doug for objective reporting, fair, unbiased and producing a volume daily for years now is truly appreciated. I trust that if anonymous comments ever got out of control, it would be taken care of.
Jyce,
Your “anonymous ” comment was not anonymous.
A true Patch response
We’ll see if this anonymous comment gets posted!
1) Bravo for the advertiser! I encourage all the advertisers on this site to read the vitriol published here and decide for themselves if it is “sincere and well meaning” or civilized. I believe that if the advertisers read many of the comments posted here, they would decide this is NOT what they want their brands or businesses associated with.
2) Mr. Miner is the sole arbiter of what constitutes libel on this site. His judgment alone determines what is “constructive” and what will appear on this site. I believe that many folks post anonymously as much to avoid getting on Mr. Miner’s list as to avoid the recognition of their fellow citizens. I believe that Mr. Miner uses the site to promote his agenda and ideas of what is good for the community, not to mention his own economic interest.
3) I do not patronize any of the advertisers on this site for the simple reason that I believe they perpetuate a divisive and spiteful spirit within our community. I encourage anyone who feels the same to do likewise.
4) 40southnews is made possible by advertising and donations. The more “hits” this website gets the more advertising it can sell and the higher the prices it can charge. This gives 40southnews a tremendous incentive to publish anything that will create traffic on the website as opposed to information of interest to the community at large. Look at how the site is operated. Judge for yourself whose interests are being served.
5) I encourage any business currently advertising on 40southnews to seriously consider switching their advertising to other local news providers such as The Pulse Newspaper and The Brentwood Spirit who do a much more professional job of informing the public and airing community opinions. Those who do might be surprised at the support they get!
I sincerely hope you have the opportunity to read this post!
I must say that I agree with this comment 100%! Very very VERY well said.
I disagree. Doug does a good job at looking at comments and judging if the comments are out of bounds. He has sent me a personal email when he thought I got a bit out of line. I appreciated how he handled it. I personally don’t like it when someone posts anonymously even if I agree with the comments. But it’s Doug’s site and he try’s to keep it fair.
Mike,
In order to truly judge if Doug is doing a “good job” we would need to be able to see what he deems unfit for publication. In the absence of this, I will judge him by the material he does allow to be published. I find much of it to be divisive, vitriolic and damaging to our community. I think many others share this opinion and I would encourage them to reach out to the advertisers that support 40southnews and tell them they will not support businesses that support 40southnews.
WJ
Just because you find it “decisive, vitriolic and damaging to our community ” doesn’t mean it is. I’m going to need examples before I can fairly judge your opinion. I will agree that some of the comments are too rude and personal but if Doug started censoring too many of them, you’d hear screaming to high heaven about the First Amendment. He’s kind of in a no win situation.
Divisive, vitriolic and damaging? Clearly you’ve never ventured into the wilds of the Internet. South 40 is positively mild compared to the rest. Just check out the comments section at the Post Dispatch.
Do you have example of this divisive, vitriolic and damaging stuff that supposedly is so common here?
“40southnews is made possible by advertising and donations. The more “hits” this website gets the more advertising it can sell and the higher the prices it can charge”
That’s how literally every online publication makes money.
Good luck boycotting the entire Internet because of comments sections. I have to wonder, however, what it’s like to apply such high-mindedness equally to radio, television, and print advertisers. It must be tough to track and boycott all those business. Unless there’s only one very specific axe being ground here…
Ummm…I’ve never heard of either publication you listed. I know very many who read 40 South News yet not one person has ever even mentioned the Pulse or the other one. Furthermore, I think most readers would agree that Doug does his best to be an impartial, community based journalist. You’re just bitter and mean spirited.
I find this comment very disappointing and contrary to my experience. I also think it cowardly to hide behind a made-up name or “anonymous” to say mean-spirited comments. However, anything nasty or mean-spirited on this site doesn’t hold a candle to what I’ve seen on the Post-Dispatch web site.
This all very confusing to me because, 40South is probably the most civil comment section on a new site I’ve ever seen. It’s actually pretty remarkable you can read the comments here and not feel gross afterward. Legitimate conversation takes place in these comments, unlike most places on the internet.
Justin: You better start boycotting every news site on the internet that allows ANY comments. Take a stroll on over to STL Today’s comment section and you will see it’s far worse than the comments posted over here. Please get out your notepad and start your boycott list of every sponsor of that website as well. Good luck shopping in this area…
Also, the fact that you boycott any sponsors of this website because you think they perpetuate a spiteful spirit is just silly. I’d be willing to bet the sponsors don’t even read the comment section, but, good for you boycotting local businesses who sponsor a local news publication.
I like the fact that you can lamblast 40 South News….though I do not feel your icky words are warranted :)(:
Funny thing is you’re still reading this and you will continue to do so and we all know that. Doug most definitely knows that. Yes sometimes freedom of expression is painful for those who wish to be king……just keep reading your highness, Doug will keep writing, I’ll continue my anonymous posts, advertisers will keep advertising, let freedom ring, P.S I’m considering submitting a weekly column entitled: Completely DL by Mr, Completely, ya think the advertisers will all leave, the world will spin out of its axis, clocks will tun backwards? Yea I’m that important….
I have to agree. I emailed doug about posting a small plug for a website I started to raise money for my 3 yr old daughters cancer treatments. I didnt even get a response. But there were several posts about a lost dog link from a popular Facebook post. I never thought of it from this point of view of traffic based of popularity. I thought it was more of a home grown community based news. I was wrong about that. And I will less frequent 40 south from now on
Matt, I’m sorry, I should have checked you out. My concerns were the legitimacy of the site and if you were local to the area.
I had previously sent you info on the flood at my house on yale. A simple Google search of my name would have shown my name credited for the photos to your website. I live now on florent. I have commented several times to many discussions on the site as well. I don’t use Facebook. I get it. Popularity sells. http://WWW.WIPEOUTWILMS.COM
You must be a sicko Progressive. According to the United States Constitution this is called Freedom of Speech, the First Amendment. Do you want to do away with Freedom of Speech. The U.S. Supreme Court said burning the United States Flag is a Freedom of Speech. But if you try and stop people from burning the flag then you are depriving the derelict of their Freedom of Speech, and you are in trouble.
my freeze peach
funny
Wustin Jyse,
If you are so unhappy with 40 South, why do you read it?
From your comments, you are a regular reader.
An advertiser has a problem with anonymous comments… On the INTERNET? They’re lucky that you allowed THEM to stay anonymous by not specifying which advertiser, since I’d make sure that whoever is so closed minded would no longer get my business.
I anonymously thank you for your policy.