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Why Comment?
Welcome to the online incarnation of Think Out Loud, a site we've designed — and, over time, are redesigning — to be an active conversation before, during, and after each live hour of Think Out Loud radio. We think of this as a virtuous circle: through your contributions, the website should feed ideas, guests, questions, and arguments onto the show, and in turn the daily hour of radio will be amplified, connected, and at times corrected on this site.
Before a show airs, we hope that you'll help us kick the tires of a topic in a sort of online gestation process. By suggesting a guest we haven't heard of, linking to an article we need to read, or perhaps reminding us of an issue we're forgetting, you can in effect guide our production of the hour.
During the show our online host David Miller will join Emily Harris live on air to synthesize your comments and questions, drawing connections between our guests' and callers' on-air conversation and the existing back and forth on the site. After the show, when the radio talk has finished, it will continue here. In fact, when the post-show comments are feisty and fruitful enough, it's a sign that we should return to the topic for a related hour of radio. And we will.
How to Register
Whether you want to comment before, during, or after a show — or throughout the process — you'll need to register. You'll be asked for a username, an e-mail address, and a password. We're hoping that you'll use your real name (here's why; and even though it's not completely obvious, the system does allow spaces and capitals in your username). You can retrieve a lost password here.
Commenting Guidelines
Write with civility and respect. No ranting, name-calling, or tantrum-throwing.
Engage arguments, not motivations. (And criticize points, not people.)
Trolling — commenting for any purpose other than sincere conversation, assuming an identity to disrupt a thread, or deliberately baiting another commenter — will not be tolerated.
Link to your sources and excerpt selectively. If you copy and paste an entire article from The Oregonian, you're slowing down the conversation and exposing Think Out Loud to the charge of copyright violation.
Try to proofread yourself. We all make mistakes, but spelling, punctuation, and grammar are signs of courtesy to the reader.
Try to keep your comments to no more than 200 words. As a general rule, if you have to scroll to read a comment, it's too long.
If you find that you're writing at length on topics of your own choosing, consider starting your own blog. You can set one up in about ten minutes. Email us and we'll help.
These guidelines are meant to be easy to understand and follow. If you break them, we'll remove the text of the offending comment. If we have to do this repeatedly, we'll delete your account.
We want to be able to get down to the business of reading your comments and making radio. Help us — and each other - by keeping the place clean.
**These commenting guidelines were adapted, with many thanks, from the guidelines of Open Source and Brendan "the B.I.C." Greeley**
