The Two Cents feature at our Web site, auburnpub.com, currently has a provocative quote that was submitted late last week.

The writer of the comment expresses frustration at the dynamics of the conversations that are taking place via the online reader comments in the Two Cents section. “Why don't you pretentious, arrogant windbags shove a cork in it and stop monopolizing the 'Two Cents' column. It is not your personal forum.”

The comment, as expected, has generated a steady number of reader responses, with some agreeing and others in dispute.

We've also received a couple of letters to the editor in recent weeks complaining about a certain letter writer's frequent submissions. Their main complaint is not so much with what he writes, but the fact that he writes and gets published so often (though never more than once per seven days, which is The Citizen's policy).

What troubles me about the sentiment behind all of these complaints is that they want to silence people simply for expressing their opinions.

There's no question that some people are more regular contributors of comments at auburnpub.com, especially in the open-ended Two Cents forum. Some of those people can be quite passionate about their views, too, and they won't hesitate to disagree with someone else.

But what I've rarely seen from any of those regular posters is an attempt to push new contributors out. They might disagree with them, but they welcome the debate.

There have been times, of course, when the discussions and even some of the printed letters to the editor deteriorated into foolish name-calling. I take some responsibility for that because our job is to moderate the forums and the letters page. It can be tough to make a judgment that some person's comment crosses the line, but we feel it's important to provide that layer of approval.

What we won't do, however, is ban people from making an online comment simply because they've posted too many times, or because they're too wordy with their comments.

My advice for folks who get frustrated by another person's frequent commentary is to do one of two things: a) post your own thoughts, get involved in the conversation and don't back down when others disagree or b) don't read the opinions of the people that upset you.

Ultimately, we're trying to foster discussion and debate, and for that to happen, we need regular contributors who have a passion about issues in the news. I'm grateful that's exactly what we have at auburnpub.com.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Tuesdays in

The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net