What's Eating You?

I was at first surprised and now dismayed at the increasingly hostile comments we are receiving at Scarsdale10583 in response to opinion pieces, news and profiles published on the site. Though we are an educated and opinionated community, we are also among the most fortunate. Our median income outstrips most villages in the state and the country, we have a fine school system, wonderful community resources like the Scarsdale Pool, recreation camp and sports facilities and a Village government and emergency response teams that are at-the-ready to answer any of our needs.

By any measure we are lucky to live here. Yet, reading the comments we receive there is little acknowledgement of what's good and abusive condemnation of what's perceived as bad. Whether it's teachers' salaries, real estate taxes, electric service, or even a new dog store, some of our readers don't mince words when crafting their comments and usually do not add their names to their posts either.

In the past few months, comments have become increasingly bitter – and often include attacks on our contributors, neighbors, those who work in the Scarsdale community and Scarsdale10583.com itself.

While we value your opinions we are concerned about the overall tone of your comments and ask you to keep the following in mind:

• The site is offered to you, our readers, at no cost to you. You are free to read it and free to read selectively. If you don't care for an article, there's no obligation to give it your time.
  
  
• To the commenter who recently wrote, "This publisher has come up with a great cash cow," we can assure you that four years since we began publication, we are still looking for that cow. We are creating this community forum for you and hope you can do your part to keep it civil.
  
  
• We are a community website, covering items of interest to the Scarsdale community. If someone from Scarsdale is in the national news we will cover it as well. In order to be relevant, we need to publish information about the town and local residents.
  
  
• The articles that are most controversial are naturally the most widely read, often receiving ten times the attention given to articles on Village meetings and charitable events. Therefore, those of you who have asked us to refrain from publishing news about people like the "marijuana mom," have been outvoted by your peers who gave this story 5,700 hits.
  
  
• To answer this comment that was received recently: "Dear Editor of this Site, Just an observation...the types of stories which do NOT work well on this site are OPINION pieces. Your opinion on Sanderlin or the school budget isn't any more relevant than anyone else's and you are seeing that many residents are clearly expressing that they share a different opinion. As a "journalist" you probably should stick to reporting the facts and let the reader form their own varying opinions, which could be expressed in the comments if a reader so chose. Very hard to be a commentator and a reporter of news." Again, the opinion pieces are among the most read articles on the site. And, why would we publish this site if we could not voice our views? We are interested in your views as well. Next time you have a comment, rather than dash off a flip, anonymous comment, please draft a letter and send it to us at [email protected] for publication. Please stand by what you have to say by including your name and street address.

Rest assured that all comments are reviewed before publication and we will be judicious about omitting comments that are insulting or damaging to our contributors, neighbors and community. Our goal is to foster an environment for a constructive and healthy exchange of ideas and we are asking you to do your part to maintain the tenor of Scarsdale10583.