Mark McHugh

Blogs, Profanity and Editorial Integrity

I'm so glad you brought this up.....

I think it touches the core of what seeking alpha is, why we come here, and whether or not we'll continue to do so.

I've written this before, I became a regular at SA when Judy Weil's regular commentary was called "Housing Bubble and Real Estate Market Tracker". You guys had the balls (can I say that?) of conviction. That put you light years ahead of other financial websites. A truly diverse crowd of contributors made the site so interesting, and when the comments section opened up, it was like a bar room brawl. And it was all very cool, very pro-first amendment, and the popularity of the site grew dramatically.

Now, my comments get deleted because I write something like "you deflationists are morons" (which they are), while adding substance to back up that claim. So instead of making morons defend themselves when exposed, you think it's better to spare them the ridicule of being called morons? If you want your site to be a safe haven for morons - mission accomplished.

I for one think we've already got enough wishy-washy, useless financial websites and magazines, that are more afraid of offending someone than providing hard-edged viewpoints. Figure out what kind of site you want to be, and be that.

Once you decide how you feel about free speech, don't apologize, or agonize over what the whiners say. You can't please everyone unless you aspire to be completely irrelevant.
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