A classic example of people believing, often incorrectly, that bigger is better, are the letters to the editor and guest opinions submitted to the Opinion Page.

For letters, our limit is 250 words and many writers say they can’t express their full and true opinion with that limited amount of space. When they hear about guest opinions, which can be up to about 600 words, they immediately want to write one.
First, and most important, almost every opinion can be expressed in 250 words or less. It just takes some concise writing and editing.

However, as you know, we do run guest opinions, which allows the authors to go into detail on why or why not they favor or oppose a particular issue.

We’re pleased that readers want to write and get their opinions published. As I’ve often stated, the purpose of the Opinion Page is to be a forum for readers and local residents to express their views.

However, because of the large number of letters and requests for guest opinions and our limited space, we’ve had to establish some firmer rules and regulations for guest opinions.

Generally, guest opinions are granted to individuals who have some expertise on the subject that they want to discuss. For example, a school superintendent writing about a district budget would be an appropriate guest opinion.

Also acceptable would be a local community leader writing about controversial issues in his area or a state representative discussing proposed legislation.
The list of appropriate guest opinions could be quite extensive but I think you get the message.

Also, a few years ago, we offered political leaders the opportunity to write, no more than once a month, a guest opinion about issues brewing in their areas. Of course, when dealing with politicians, we have to insist they keep their guest opinion to a specific topic and not turn it into a “vote for me” piece.

Admittedly, there are some guest opinion writers who may not seem to have particular expertise on a topic but we still grant them the space. They are normally people who have been writing for years and are generally grandfathered in.

There is one alternative for people who want to write longer letters than 250 words. These often end up being 400 or 500 words in length. We can put them online on our website. Fortunately, the Internet has an infinite amount of space. So it can accommodate the longer letters. However, most people usually want to see their correspondence in print, not just on the web.

It would be great if we had the space to allow everyone who wanted to, the option of writing a guest opinion instead of a letter. But we don’t. Admittedly, some of the rules may be loose and sometimes items are run as guest opinions that should have been kept to letters. We make mistakes and we are always reevaluating our policies.

We constantly strive to achieve two basic goals: We want to continue to be a forum for the opinions of our readers and we want to be fair in doing so.

“Fair,” obviously, can be a relative term. But we’ll keep trying.