A Comment on Our Comments
6 years ago by
Our Dear Readers,
Comments on this site have always been incredibly important to us. We’ve gotten to know many of you over the years—some just through the site and others we’ve been able to connect with you more recently IRL; it’s been such a treat to know we have such an engaged, interested (and interesting!) community. But in the last few months, we’ve noticed that the comments here have become more polarizing. Yes, we continue to receive wonderful and thought-provoking notes from you that constantly drive the dialogue forward about the stories we tell. But with that has also come a lot of hate. I think it may be a sign of the times we’re living in, but we’ve found it to be quite extreme and mean-spirited. The spirit of this site has always been one of curiosity, wonder, beauty, honesty and humor. Because we’ve worked to create a beautiful space online, one where both our editors and the generous people whose stories we’ve shared have been given an opportunity to be vulnerable, we’re going to get a little stricter in regards to how we moderate comments. This site without a comments section just doesn’t feel right to us, but we want to encourage a dialogue that aligns with the spirit of our storytelling. We look forward to constructive criticism, questions and healthy debate. But we won’t stand for comments that don’t contribute to a healthy conversation.
With that said, we’ll close the comments on this post, and look forward to hearing your thoughts on our other stories.
-The Atelier
