I’ve long wanted to engage in a thorough evisceration of your posts, but as I’ve pointed out before, correcting your errors would be a full-time job in itself.

Whether you think we should know this or not is irrelevant. There is only one person in the office who knows who all the donors are and she does not write on this blog. The rest of us are not privy to that information, and that is fine. Our viewpoints are not compromised because someone donates to the organization; each Show-Me author takes his or her own stance.

My personal policy is to not refer to people I criticize by name. This is not a hard and fast rule for everyone, but a general one. I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than quibble about structure, and I know we have better uses of that time as well.

Attempting to impugn our integrity is not the way to inspire us to have a serious policy-oriented discussion with you. If you had wanted to talk about the issues as they directly related to the post, then I’m sure someone would be more than happy to engage that debate. Forgive some of us though for not being excited about that prospect after the litany of unwarranted abuse you gave one of our authors on your own blog, or after the amount of time you’ve taken up by engaging other authors in off-topic debates on our blog.

Policing our blog is only a small portion of our job. Superfluous hypothetical debates about theory or writing style have a better home than Show-Me Daily.

Thanks for your time, Eapen, and hopefully we all can have a more productive and professional blog relationship in the future.

There’s no reason for the policy staff to know who our donors are, and so I think most if not all of us are rationally ignorant. Anyone doing development here has a reason to know this stuff, the rest of us don’t. We work to promote market solutions for Missouri citizens, not the agenda of a secret cabal (seems over the top to you and me, I know, but some people seem to believe this).

It is unfortunate that our comments do not always adhere to the highest standards of professional debate. We really do want to change people’s minds about the power of free markets to improve the lot of the general population. We are human, though, and when one person in particular makes repeated borderline/actually personal attacks on one of our staff, it becomes harder to remain objective. In the future, let’s try to all bear in mind that the writings we are criticizing are the ideas of a person, not just an Internet entity. That person has a family and friends, and probably did their research before writing. Let’s all stick to the issues and avoid specious ad-hominems. I think it would also help if each comment thread were, oh, related to the post it is under. I realize the irony of writing this here, but it needs to be said.

Eapen, we appreciate your readership and I personally encourage you to continue to follow us and discuss our work with people who both agree and disagree with you or us politically.

It would be much better to cite everyone directly; that way you don’t get called out for being partisan.

I will add that you should absolutely know who your main donors are. If you claim you don’t, I don’t believe you (and no one else will). I will concede that I don’t think your donors influence you to toe any specific ideological line or unduly pressure any specific policy. However, the lack of consistency in your “policy” or “tendency” will invite questions, and I urge you to establish clear, published citation guidelines.

I also think that you’re being a bit unfair to anyone who challenges you or expresses a contrarian viewpoint. Courtesy demands politeness, and while I can’t claim that I’m a paragon of either, I do think that the general attitude of Show-Me authors on these comment threads tend to be unfriendly and bitingly sarcastic to anyone who expresses disagreement. “Shrill” might be an appropriate adjective here. Sarah Brodsky (does she still write for you?) comes to mind here. Are you trying to genuinely educate people or preach to them?

It’s also pretty obvious to anyone who might be following these threads that Show-Me authors routinely post under fake names; often these posts are not civil and rather discourteous. Perhaps you could start publishing IPs along with names? This is standard procedure for the more reputable of the thousands of blogs and bulletin boards that exist on the web.

I am not invested in how your blog works now or in the future, and I really did think that a lot of the work presented here is very worthwhile and very valuable.

Some thoughts for your consideration.

Eapen Thampy

Looking back at Chrissy’s original draft for this entry, I count three mentions of the governor’s name that I edited out, including one in the title.

I might have left Richards’ name in the quoted material in Caitlin’s April 29 blog entry if she hadn’t already edited it out and I hadn’t edited her entry from a cell phone at a jazz festival in New Orleans. Her construction was editorially correct, and I had no reason to change it.

This is the least productive comment thread you’ve ever instigated, and that’s being generous.

It’s a yes or no question, and I think this is productive…so my answer to your question right now is now.

I reiterate: It’s a general tendency, not a universal policy.

Stop wasting everybody’s time.