Policy announcement: reader mail

For me, 49% of the point in having an online site is the scrapbook/diarist function: having a place to note developments, oddities, events I have come across that I won't put to "real" journalistic use. This is part of the way we all try to make sense of our progress through time.

51% of the payoff is hearing from other people about related thoughts, incidents, and  phenomena they have come across. It's like having a conversation with people you hadn't known before but who turn out to have common interests and experiences.

So I appreciate hearing from readers (see the "email JF" button at the right). I try to answer but ... no offense if I don't.

Here is the policy announcement: to save myself the back and forth of asking permission to quote this or that, I will assume that material anyone sends me IS quotable, unless you say otherwise. And, I will assume that I should NOT use your real name with the quote, unless you say "feel free to use my name." That is a safer default assumption, if I make a mistake, than the opposite one would be.

So, again: please do write; I'll try to answer; and I'll consider this all "on the record" unless you say otherwise, but not attributable by name unless you explicitly say it is.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/05/policy-announcement-reader-mail/17346/