One commenter, in a pique because an earlier post had been deleted, wrote to complain that my action shows why the newspaper is going downhill.

I'm not sure how the deletion of his post is related to the state of this newspaper, but it is giving me this opportunity to explain my editing process for the print edition and for the website, including comments from posters.

Words are important. Words convey your meaning and there are thousands to choose from. George Carlin used to do a monologue about the seven words you can never say on television. Those are a great place to start, and it's not because they are bad: It's because they are unnecessary.

I have worked with reporters who sought out quotes containing foul language. Their arguments for using the words centered on accuracy. I argued just as strongly they could be just as accurate without repeating the offending language and could do a better job of reporting.

Web posters seem to try two approaches. The first is to disguise letters as symbols. I realize they do that to get their comments past built-in filters -- so I'll act as the free-standing filter and delete, too. The second approach involves acronyms -- I'm sometimes initially stumped by them, but certain letters do stand out. So when I find a post containing ROFL, I won't hit the delete key, but add those other letters and your post will likely be deleted.

A second area of focus in my editing process involves determining what we know. Sometimes, all signs point to something being true, but we don't have documentation or an on-the-record source for that information. We are responsible for being right.

On the night of the recent incident at Victor Cullen Center, the newsroom scanners started buzzing about the apparent breakout. A reporter, photographer and videographer headed for the scene. While they were on their way, I fielded a call from an editor at The Associated Press and one from a neighbor to the center. I told both callers that staff members were on their way to the scene and I could not say much more until they arrived. Once they did and I talked to all three of them, I quickly posted what we knew and were able to verify to the website and sent a copy to the news service.

What I find with that story and other similar breaking news stories is readers want to post their own information. My rule of thumb when I'm working is if we don't know it (often the posts are far different than information we have and are trying to verify), I delete it. In all situations, we need to strive for accuracy. I know that as I write this, some of you are going to determine it necessary to post details about something we posted to the web or ran in the newspaper that turned out to be inaccurate.

This is not a perfect world, but we do strive to do our best.

One recent letter to the editor captured the importance of making our words count. Writing about a photo regarding the school system's math program, the writer said the picture was worth 900 plus 90 plus 9 plus 1 words.

Think about it. There are thousands of words. Use the ones that make a difference, not the ones that incite wrath.