Our goal is, and has been, to improve our Web presence, and make www.gaylesbiantimes.com a destination for daily news alerts, community and national news, arts, entertainment, dining and nightlife content.

With our sights set high, we have our work cut out for us – there is a significant amount of research to be done regarding online publishing.

As with most things, there are growing pains; times of trial and error, and a learning curve. We may not be new to news, but we’re new to the quirks and implications of online content, such as comments and blogs.

One of our new features, which we rolled out with our Web site’s redesign in May, is online comments.

Allowing users to post comments online is tricky territory. On one hand, it increases the amount of dialogue among our readers, and it allows readers to respond immediately to a story (rather than wait to see a letter to the editor printed in the next week’s edition).

On the other hand, online comments have the potential to violate the state’s libel laws, and create liability issues for the poster and potentially the magazine.

Last month, much to the chagrin of some, we posted a new disclaimer to online comments.

It reads: “Content in online comments is subject to approval. Statements or claims made against individuals must be supported by documentation (police records including case numbers, campaign contribution documents, hyperlinks to supporting information or news stories, etc.). Statements or claims made against individuals must be verified before it is published. If information cannot be verified, it will not be published online. Readers are allowed, and encouraged, to make statements of opinion (e.g. ‘In my opinion ...’ ‘From my perspective ...’ ‘I believe ...’). In most cases comments will be approved within 24 hours. If additional research is needed to verify comments, comments may take more than 48 hours to approve.”

In the next week, we will also require users to register with our Web site using a valid e-mail address before they are able to comment, and we will create and post online a comprehensive “terms of use” agreement for our online comments.

Recently, we’ve noticed one user posting 10-15 comments regarding one section of the magazine, using a different name each time and hiding his or her e-mail address.

While we are unable to contact the user, we are able to see the posts coming from one IP address (which means they are coming from one user, or multiple users using one server). There are similarities in usernames, and the postings are timed … conveniently, we’ll say.

In the future, if users wish to comment multiple times using various names, users will have to register multiple e-mail addresses. Our solution (requiring users to register) isn’t fool-proof, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Also, users will be required to agree to terms of use on the site; among them, users will be solely responsible for the content in postings, and can be held responsible for violations of the law. Posting privileges may be revoked for violations of law, or for posts that are threatening, libelous or abusive. As is the case now, we will reserve the right, based on our judgment, to remove or not approve comments that may violate the new terms of use.

Surely, with the disclaimer and our new registration process, some will say we’re discouraging readers from commenting, or censoring our readers. This is absolutely not the case.

The Gay & Lesbian Times has always encouraged readers to send letters to the editor. Our policy is to print every letter we receive unedited – but the new guidelines for our online comments apply, too. Letters are not always flattering; they’re often critical of our content and our contributors – and that is fine by us. Dialogue in the community, and in the community’s paper of record, is healthy, and we’re proud to be a catalyst for community conversations.

The standards of media ethics and law will always apply to our content, though. We will continue to print our readers thoughts, comments and suggestions as they are relevant to our content; we will not print blatantly false or misleading items, or opinions users disguise as fact.

We will continue to talk with other professionals about online content and, as we learn more about publishing readers’ comments online, we’ll amend our policies accordingly.