Photo by egil viesturson on Flickr.

We think the Greater Greater Washington comment discussions and the community of people who participate are a very special and valuable component of this site and our work. We need a few volunteers to help monitor the comments and keep them great.

We want a comment section that, as much as possible, people feel comfortable participating in, and which readers can find educational to read. That means keeping a high proportion of comments that add useful information or thoughtful perspectives, and minimizing those that attack or snipe at others.

We’ve developed over time a comment policy to try to govern this. Matt Johnson has been moderating comments for years, but he and we need some help going forward.

What we need

Therefore, we’re looking for some comment monitors who can keep watch on the comments throughout the day and quickly report any comments that cross the line of our policy. In the future, we’re also hoping some of the monitors can actually delete or modify comments, but we’ll start by having Matt and David continue taking the final action with input from our new comment monitors.

You could be a prolific commenter or just an avid lurker. The number of comments you’ve written doesn’t matter, but you do need to have a strong commitment to keeping our comment threads focused on issues and not personalities or minutiae of what someone else said in an earlier comment.

You don’t have to be able to look at comments every minute, but do need to be able to look at them (either on a computer or mobile device) frequently throughout weekdays.

If you can help us out, please drop us a note at info@ggwash.org with “Comment monitor” in the subject line. Thank you so much!

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David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.

Matt Johnson has lived in the Washington area since 2007. He has a Master’s in Planning from the University of Maryland and a BS in Public Policy from Georgia Tech. He lives in Dupont Circle. He’s a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and is an employee of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. His views are his own and do not represent those of his employer.