Your forum, your voice. Join the conversation in 2021!

Happy 2021! Welcome to a new year of The People’s Forum, the long-running, ever-engaging conversation — both in print on this page and online at telegram.com — among readers from throughout Central Massachusetts and Northeast Connecticut on issues that move them to write as part of an ongoing community conversation.

The Telegram & Gazette’s People’s Forum, as with letters to the editor in newspapers across the land, was THE social media before there even was a “social media.” And once again we’re happy to publish the name of each letter writer in the past year. Many wrote multiple times, bringing the total number of letters published to about 750.

And that total doesn’t include Raymond Mariano's thought-provoking Sunday columns, the locally written “As I See It” opeds that appear most weeks, or the hundreds of comments we receive through social media to our Point/Counterpoints — thank you, Roberta Schaefer and Randy Feldman. It also doesn’t include the thousands of viewers of our Facebook Live webcasts, podcasts or political debates during the past 12 months.

In a year that featured a once-in-a-century, globe-stopping pandemic, a presidential election for the ages and an unwavering quest for social justice, the conversation in The People’s Forum was dominated, as expected, by Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Holy Cross' own Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The conversation also included a healthy debate on local subjects such as marijuana, abortion rights, Death with Dignity, Kelley Square, the Worcester Red Sox, hybrid vs. remote schooling, Kennedy vs. Markey, the Christopher Columbus statue in front of Union Station and Black Lives Matter.

But the topics tackled by our letter writers are as varied as the list of contributors. As we embark on our 155th year, we remain true to our core mission in providing news and information that is vital to you and to publishing your words on this page and online.

Our current guidelines are straightforward. We publish virtually every letter as long as we can confirm authorship, the letter is in good taste and not libelous, is comprehensible and, in the case of handwritten letters, legible. Material may be libelous if it holds a private person or organization up to hatred, contempt, suspicion of wrongdoing, scorn or ridicule.

We do not publish anonymous letters or letters with pseudonyms. In confirming authorship we require the writer’s full name, a home and mailing address, and a phone number for verification of authorship as well as to contact for questions.

We make an effort to work with authors to clarify letters but cannot guarantee this in every instance. We do not block publication on ideological grounds and do not solicit letters with a particular point of view.

We do, however, reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, for good taste and for brevity. We also reserve the right to put a close to repetitive conversations. We review letters about active court cases carefully.

Letters can be up to 250 words, except for political endorsements, which can be up to 100 words. Writers can have a letter published every six weeks, although readers can comment as often as they like on our Facebook page.

Letters must be original. Quotations should be clearly attributed.

Generally, we do not publish reprints, extended quotations, open letters or letters that have appeared elsewhere.

Letters should be of general public interest. We do not publish strictly personal letters, including those about damaged or missing property or pets, consumer complaints or on personal religious beliefs. We do not publish letters written in verse or essay form.

The deadline for receiving endorsements on federal, state and municipal elections is generally the Wednesday before Election Day.

We do not publish form letters. All endorsements must be written and signed by their authors. Depending on volume and available space, we attempt to publish letters received before the deadline in the order they are received but cannot guarantee that all will appear.

We do not publish them on the day before or day of the election.

Letters for class projects should be submitted as a group with a cover listing the school, teacher(s) and grades of students involved.

We normally publish one representative letter from such a project.

Letters should be emailed to [email protected], with “The People’s Forum” as subject line; or sent via U.S. Mail to Telegram & Gazette, 100 Front St., Floor 5, Worcester, MA 01608-1440. Our email and mail addresses appear daily at the bottom of the editorial page.

We welcome your opinions. Join the conversation in 2021!

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Your forum, your voice. Join the conversation in 2021!

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