Over the past two weeks, anonymous communication about members of this campus has become something of an issue in two different forums: Juicy Campus and The Rant.

As firm believers in free speech, we are torn over JuicyCampus.com. On the one hand, people are certainly entitled to say what they wish; however, in the anonymous, public forum, there is no opportunity for open discourse or a way to defend oneself without it coming off poorly.

Overall the site reflects rather poorly on the university and serves to renew the old, somewhat outdated Vandy stereotypes about Greek life and the student body in general. While a message board seems innocuous enough, anonymous forums about the “biggest sluts on campus” really aren’t something an admissions officer would direct the nearest prospective student to.

In this publication, of course, we have our own anonymous forum: The Rant. Beyond its value as an entertaining feature, The Rant does serve as a means of isolating specific honest criticisms of services like dining, housing and parking on campus by actual students.

Recently, however, there have been a few rants mentioning specific students in a less than ideal manner. The publication of these items was editorial oversight, and we sincerely apologize for any harm incurred as a result.

While often hilarious, reading through and editing Rant submissions involves wading through quite a bit of obscenity and sheer vindictiveness about various students — sometimes directed at members of the editorial board.

Thus, beginning today, we’re re-instituting a policy regarding The Rant: No student names will appear, with the exception of those who have submitted themselves into the public forum and only in that context, such as writing in the Opinion section (for example, Andrew Solomon or Mike Warren).

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, even though anonymously posted content can be entertaining as hell, all too often it reveals a dark side of people’s character.