One of the most important parts of the Daily does not lie within our stories, our photos, our graphics or Dr. Date. It doesn’t come from our employees, our managers or our Board of Directors. It comes from you.

The first part of the Daily’s mission statement is to provide a forum of communication for the University community.

We can give you informational articles and thought-provoking editorials and columns, but what we really want is for that to be just the beginning – a jumping off point of sorts.

We want to give you information, we want to elicit discussion and we want you to care.

Here are some ways that you can be heard in the Daily.

Online comments

Have you ever read a story you thought was phenomenal? Mediocre? Horrendously awful? Or have you ever read something and felt like you could add an interesting angle or perspective? Fantastic. Tell us, and tell everyone through posting an online comment on that story or column.

It’s anonymous, because you sign up using your own name, such as purplepants or fannypack2000. Then your comment (as long as it’s not threatening, racist or completely insane) will remain attached to the story for all to read.

We’ve been getting pretty good traffic for online comments, but our space is limitless so I would prefer to have a minimum of 100 more posts per story. So please get on that.

Letters to the editor

Oh, good ol’ letters to the editor. Remember back in the olden days when you sat down at your roll-top desk, grabbed a piece of parchment and a spot of ink, ranted about the latest thing that made you feel passionate, then mailed it in to your local newspaper?

Yep, well, do that. Except just use e-mail. Our readers’ representative, Tim Franzen, would weep with joy to receive more letters from you. Maybe it’s because we now offer online comments, or maybe all our readers agree with every single thing we write or maybe people just care less about issues in the I-want-to-write-a-letter-about-it way, but we’d really like to receive more from you.

Submit letters or guest columns to [email protected]. For letters/column guidelines, check out the Daily Editorials and Opinions section.

Events cal, on the street

A lot of you have been becoming wise to this, but we now offer an events calendar, smack dab in the middle of page two, where we will shamelessly list your event for free if you are part of a registered student group. To submit your item, go to mndaily.com/calendar.

See that feature photo next to the events calendar called “on the street”? What we do to find our ideas for subjects is just kind of wander around campus aimlessly until we find something or someone interesting enough to capture (photograph, not kidnap). Although we don’t particularly mind our nomadic practices, we’d be happy to take your suggestions at [email protected] if you have something interesting going on.

Basically, we like ourselves a whole lot, but we’d really like to see more of you in the paper. I know you have thoughts on the things we do. I know you have brilliant ideas that you could write about. We’ve put the opportunities out there for you – now take them.

Thank you, always, for reading, thinking and contributing. I’ll see you in the Daily.

Anna Weggel welcomes comments at [email protected].