I ENJOYED Robert McNeil's column about a country that does not even exist ("The week Scotland became Notweek", the Herald, February 15).
Many of your readers may not be aware that Scotland doesn't exist on Facebook.
A few years ago I got in touch again with an old friend via Facebook. He had put his place of birth as "Edinburgh, United Kingdom".
"You've changed your tune," I thought. But when I entered my own details my place of birth came up as "Stirling, United Kingdom"and despite my efforts to change this "Scotland" was not an option.
Worse was to come. For place of employment I entered "Hamilton", expecting I'd be forced to add UK. Every Hamilton in the world (from New Zealand to the United States and Canada)was given as an option except the original one – not even Hamilton, United Kingdom.
Crawford Steele,
138 Wilton Street,
Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
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