An announcement to my readers

As regular Radarsite readers will recall we have run a series of three article on the issues of alleged censorship at Real Clear Politics, here, here and here. These articles were written in response to many comments and emails Radarsite had received from people who felt that their articles had been unfairly deleted by RCP. Although Radarsite itself had not experienced this problem there were so many who apparently had that it seemed only right to take up this challenge and confront RCP. These articles got literally thousands of readers so I guess a lot of people thought it was worth bringing up.

However, even though I am still receiving comments and emails on this subject, I have begun to doubt the wisdom of continuing this crusade. Yesterday I posed this issue to a group of my close friends and fellow bloggers: Have we accomplished all that we can reasonably expect to accomplish in this confrontation? Is it time to drop it and move on? The responses were unanimous -- Nothing more can be accomplished by continuing this campaign. Now is the time to stop. Here is what one good friend and respected colleague had to say: "I've been thinking about this RCP thing and I've come to this conclusion. RCP owners have every right to make the rules for their site, just like we do for our sites. If they choose to remove articles, or block someone, that's technically their right. They don't HAVE to allow reader articles at all, this is something nice that they do. They could stop that completely. Just like you all, I have had articles removed, I have had to re-register three times, it's frustrating. However, I think after three articles on them, with no real reply or changes, if it were me I would let it drop."

So that's what I'm going to do. No more challenges to RCP. Although they certainly had the right to do it, I believe that we also had the right to question it. However, to continue on with this one-sided battle does seem pointless. The sentence from the above response that finally convinced me to change my position was this one: "RCP owners have every right to make the rules for their site, just like we do for our sites". That is inarguable. And I have to admit -- as you probably all know by now -- I have deleted many commenters here at Radarsite for a variety of reasons. It would therefore be hypocritical of me to challenge a site owner's right to post or delete whomever they wish.

I have no way of knowing whether these articles did any good or not. I can only hope that they did. To all of you have have come onto Radarsite to show your support, I thank you, and I hope you understand the reasons for this decision. We still have great battles ahead of us to fight. - rg