Hi Daniel, Came across this post again, saw your comment about CL, racism, and the Denver Post message boards. I'd say there's a significant difference: The Post does its best to eliminate hate speech, eliminate trolls, and keep the conversation civil. Over the past four weeks the Post's boards have turned particularly volatile. That happened, and we stepped up our attention to the comments. It's likely you can still find some nasty comments, which shouldn't make it hard for you to back up your claims of the "truly hateful stuff" on the Post site with some links. I'm looking forward to seeing what you dig up. -Joe

Joe, This is hardly the worst case, but it's indicative of the ugly tone that seems commonplace on the dailies' boards: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/10/hickenlooper-says-restaurants-city-need-go-green-d/ A simple article on efforts to make the convention more green kicks off with a comment likening Democrats to sewage and within a few comments descends to equating Dems with Al Qaeda. Like I said, it's hardly the worst, but I saw it just now, and thought of this discussion. Honestly, I'm not suggesting censorship. It's disturbing how angry so many people are, though.

Hey, be nice to the newspapers. I mean -- hey, I work for the Post, and while I have no comment on the content of the article, I do know why it appeared under "Breaking News." Last week we switched all the links in the top front section so they all point to the breaking news section. I'd guess about half the articles in that list are actually breaking news, the others come from a wide variety of sections. Booth's article came from the business section.

Joey, I think you've missed the point. If we run a singles story in 2008, we won't promote it as some kind of "dirty little secret." Of course Mike is a skilled journalist. But in this case, he made himself look out of touch by using those words. I was surprised his editors let that slip into print -- after all, it's our job to have our writers' backs. Some of the people commenting on Mike's story over on the Post's site are suggesting that maybe this has more to do with the resentment newspaper people may feel against Craigslist. I'm guessing that's not the case. But the commenters do raise an issue that's worth repeating here. If you're really offended by racism and misogyny, I've got to ask what you think of the Post's own forums? There's all kinds of truly hateful stuff going on there. What do you suggest we do about that? (For that record, I'm all for free speech, so I think you have to take the good with the ugly, whether it's on Craiglist or denverpost.com.)

I work at the Post, too. Mike Booth is one of the most skilled and judicious journalists I've ever known. I go to Craigslist pretty often, and I had no idea that supporting Craigslist meant I was also supporting a forum for racism and sexual perversion. Wow. That's highly relevant to me in terms of who or what I choose to support. If racism and perversion are commonplace to Mike's critic, well, that's an issue I can't comment on, because I don't know the man. The Internet tells me he's the founder and editor of 5280 magazine. Daniel, is 5280 publishing Denver's hottest singles again this year? There are attractive unmarried people in Denver -- somebody call the Pulitzer committee.