The comments on West Side Rag stories are a crucial part of what makes the site fun and useful. Our readers are always willing to offer an opinion, a joke, or some wisdom. Recently, one reader even claimed to have found a long-lost cousin in the comments section in a post about growing up in the neighborhood in the 30’s. See, the Internet does good things sometimes.

We definitely want to keep encouraging that kind of interaction. But we have received some complaints that the comments section has gotten a little too nasty. Other websites like ours have responded to this kind of thing by adding more stringent verification measures, blocking IP addressees, or banning comments altogether. That’s not something we want to do. Allowing anonymous comments helps bring more people into the conversation.

With that in mind, we wanted to offer a few reminders:

1. Feel free to challenge another commenter’s logic, but do so without calling that person an idiot. This shouldn’t be too difficult. Just think: “I am an adult screaming at an anonymous person on the Internet. Maybe I have better things to do.”

2. Please use a real email address when you submit your comment (which doesn’t get published with your comment) so we can contact you if necessary.

3. Choose a single alias for your comments and try not to use an alias that’s already being used by another commenter.

We’ll be moderating the comments and may delete ones that don’t adhere to basic community standards. So keep sending in those comments! You might just meet your long-lost cousin.

Clip art by bitterjug.