The State of Reality Chex
First, thank you all for your encouragement and kind words.
I started Reality Chex in 2008 because I couldn't find a single site where I could get all or most all of what I wanted to know about the state of the presidential race and other contests. I figured that since I had to look all over the place to get a good handle on the big picture, I might as well share what I was finding. It was never my intention to carry the site past the 2008 election. However, the transition was pretty interesting so I carried on a bit longer. I figured I'd shut down after the inauguration. But the first months of the Obama administration were intense, so I kept up. Finally, I shut down Reality Chex in April 2009. Big protest. So I did a few things to make my job easier and started back up again.
I didn't allow comments until some time in 2011 (as I recall). That went fairly well, except I had problems with a few commenters attacking others and with some commenters who thought they could just make up “facts” to bolster their views. Others took me to be their personal research assistant or Answer Lady and would ask me to find stuff widely available through a simple Google search, or worse, to compile data in formats that were not widely available and report back. I got sick of all that & shut down for about a week, but I had enough letters asking me to resume that I did so, with some caveat that commenters had better shape up.
I understand that we were all on pins and needles going into the election, and we're all pumped now that it turned out more-or-less for the best. But this excitement has been followed by a return of the fact-free zone (along with few of requests of the Answer Lady). That gets me down, mostly because I don't think I should have to babysit adults. And I sure as hell don't enjoy it. I feel like Sister Mary Elephant.
So if you want to keep this site going, please show us all the courtesy of writing comments that contribute to, rather than detract from, the conversation. This is what most of you do almost all of the time. Alternately, if you want to write crap, I'll either have to shut down the comments facility – which I don't want to do – or find a crap moderator and let her or him manage the comments. Any volunteers for this thankless post should write to me personally at constantweader@gmail.com I don't expect a long line of applicants.
As Sister Mary Elephant would say, “Thank you.”
Marie