MRAK WEBSITE SURPASSES 8 MILLION VIEWS
If you’ve been around Must Read Alaska for a while, you’re aware the comment sections on stories are a robust platform for a wide range of political views.
MRAK welcomes these comments and tries to get them approved and visible quickly. You deserve that. Your comments are approved all day long, from 7 am until 11 pm. They’re approved over dinner, while waiting in line at the store, while walking around the lake, and just before the lights go out for the night. They’re approved by hand, one at a time.
Earlier this month, Must Read Alaska raced past 8 million views on the thousands of stories posted since May of 2016, MRAK’s website birthday month.
At some point in the next few days, the 30,000th comment will be approved and posted on MRAK. It might be a liberal comment or a conservative one — only time will tell. (We’ll try to catch it as it goes by and highlight it).
Now, a fraction of comments received are not published. MRAK is pretty liberal when it comes to letting people have their say, but not every comment gets through. Usually the ones that are tossed fall into a few categories:
Calling someone a Nazi: Name-calling needs to be kept to a bare minimum at Must Read Alaska. Calling someone a liberal is an apt description, not an insult. Calling someone a “libtard” is funny for a moment, until you realize that it’s not really all that funny. Describing someone as “woke” or a member of the “wokerati” is acceptable. But calling them a fascist is not going to cut it. Calling Sen. Cathy Giessel “Giessel the Weasel” does not contribute to civil discourse, and we may or may not let Shifty Schiff through. MRAK is trying to limit this type of comment. Calling someone a Nazi is going to get your comment bounced. If you see it, then it’s because it slipped by. Send a note.
TYPING IN ALL CAPS: Those overly capitalized comments are increasingly just going into the digital round bin, because who has time to retype them all? Not this editor, and not with 30,000 comments to edit. Many times the MRAK editor will be approving comments from a smartphone from “Somewhere in Alaska,” and the excessive use of capitalization is just TOO MUCH WORK TO FIX.
Adding links: Some writers like to include a link to another source, and these are allowed in extremely limited instances. If we know the writer, and trust they are not linking people to malware, it may go through. But usually, MRAK just doesn’t want to take the risk of malware on this site.
Insulting pen names: While the creativity is appreciated, some pen names (“Dumbleavy” are just rude. You may use a pen name, such as “Ben Colder,” (one of MRAK’s favorites) or “Liberal Folliculitus” (which we translate to mean “hair-on-fire”), bring a giggle to readers. You may also use your true name.
Grammatical disasters: Your MRAK editor wants you to look smart. If there are too many typos to fix, she’ll spare you the embarrassment and toss your comment. You can always try again.
Pure troll: Some commenters are just so unpleasant that MRAK’s editor thinks they simply got lost and belong on a different website. We’re trying to keep things civil here. For example, if you say MRAK‘s editor is a stupid-head, into the round bin you go.
OTHER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why do my comments not appear immediately? All comments are screened, and most are accepted for publication.
Why did you edit my comment? Comments may be lightly edited to create a more civil discourse, or for spelling or grammar. MRAK’s editor cannot get to every grammatical error, but she does a bit of tidying up. Don’t expect her to fix everything in your comment, just the worst errors.
Why did my comment disappear? It was there a minute ago. This is a mystery. It must have something to do with the WordPress software. We have no idea why comments just go “poof” sometimes, but it’s a question that has come up more than once.
Other questions? Ask here and we’ll try to answer them in the comments below. And thank you for reading!