Wimps

The Deseret News has no sense of humor.

And also, it appears, the need for better copy editing.

They've started a series of articles on BYU-Idaho and, in their first installation, wrote "Rick's College" twice in their article. A minor flub, but one that should not have been missed in either the writing or editing process, since this is a common mistake made by many when Ricks College bore that name and anyone associated with a church-associated publication like the Deseret News should have known this.

I put in a slightly snarky comment, which I will produce here for all who care to read it:

Who is Rick, and why does he have a college?

A common question asked whenever anyone in this neck of the woods wanted to point out that it was Ricks College, not Rick's College.

I got the following reply from the Deseret News editorial team:

Dear Brian Davidson,
Thank you for commenting on On the frontier: How BYU-Idaho is pushing the boundaries of higher education on DeseretNews.com.
Unfortunately, your comment was not approved for one or more of the following reasons:

   * Comment included name-calling, epithets, racial slurs or personal attacks.
   * Comment contained obscenity, vulgarity and/or profanity (including symbol-replaced words).
   * Comment contained over-use of punctuation (e.g. !!!, ???), ALL CAPS SHOUTING and/or was considered incoherent.
   * Comment included a Link to another website.
   * Comment was considered commercial promotion.
   * Comment was intended to provoke or inappropriately addressed other readers by name.

We would invite you to edit and resubmit your comment using the following guidelines:

   * Comments should be thoughtful and helpful to your fellow readers with additional insight or counterpoints to the article
   * Avoid personal attacks and other inappropriate responses to fellow readers.
   * Treat other readers as you would if you were speaking to them from a microphone, looking them in the eyes, then passing the microphone cordially to the next contributor.

If you would like to revise the following comment to comply with DeseretNews.com policy you may resubmit it by logging in and commenting directly from the story again.
********************
Who is Rick, and why does he have a college?
********************
If you have further questions about comment moderation, please visit our Comments FAQ Page http://www.deseretnews.com/site/comments.
Regards,
Deseret News Editorial Team
This email was automatically generated by DeseretNews.com. Please do not reply. To unsubscribe from further comment notifications, click here.

Bunch of wimps.

Sure, they went and edited the story to expunge the "Rick's College" mentions -- but the should have said that in the reply to my comment, rather than suggesting in any way that it was uncalled for, as this email does. I'm not upset they didn't post my comment, and I'm glad they fixed the error. But anyone doing social media these days ought to know that reaching out in a positive way to someone who points out an error -- even a tiny one like this -- is going to be better off than someone who dismisses a poster like they're swatting a fly.

Even better was that earlier I got this message from the same editorial team, or so it seems:

Dear Brian Davidson,
Thank you for commenting on On the frontier: How BYU-Idaho is pushing the boundaries of higher education on DeseretNews.com.

This message is to inform you that your comment on On the frontier: How BYU-Idaho is pushing the boundaries of higher education was approved. Thank you for your participation in keeping our dialogue civil and enlightening. We hope you'll continue to engage in the online conversations on DeseretNews.com and look forward to seeing more from you in the future.

Regards,
Deseret News Editorial Team
This email was automatically generated by DeseretNews.com. Please do not reply. To unsubscribe from further comment notifications, click here.

Can't seem to make up their mind?

I know why it happened -- they fixed the error then realized, "Hey, nobody's going to understand this comment now that w'eve fixed our boo-boo. Better delete the comment, too."

Oops. That's two errors now, Deseret News.