If you are a woman, we want to hear from you.

If you are a person of color, we want to hear from you.

If you are a young adult, we want to hear from you.

If you are a middle-aged white male — the demographic who most frequently writes to us at the newspaper — we want to continue to hear from you too.

If you are politically conservative, we want to hear from you.

If you are progressive, we want to hear from you.

We want to hear what is on your mind.

We want to share your opinions with the entire community.

Yes, you can post your views on your own Facebook page for a group of friends, but consider the fact that thousands and thousands of people visit The Valdosta Daily Times website every day, the newspaper has more than 42,000 followers on Facebook and the numbers grow daily, not to even mention the thousands of people who receive each edition of the print edition of the newspaper.

You can influence a lot of people with your words.

Your opinions matter.

We value a strong, robust public discourse and think communities are stronger when there is a diverse marketplace of ideas. We all grow when we consider views that differ from our own.

We want to share points of view which are conservative, progressive and everything in between. We also understand that so many of you do not consider yourself ultra liberal or conservative. Furthermore many local issues really have nothing to do with partisan politics.

Consider putting your thoughts together in the form of a guest column or letter to the editor.

Of course, as we have said often, we will not publish vile, inappropriate hate speech, racist words or things which are factually untrue. Claims of fact must be supported by verifiable sources. To be clear, however, we will not reject a letter or column simply because we disagree with the opinions expressed.

We are committed to publishing diverse points of view on the editorial page and the opinions section of our website. That is one reason we are encouraging more women to write columns and letters. We do not hear from enough of you and our community will benefit from your perspectives.

Letters can be submitted to valdostadailytimes.editorial@gaflnews.com or mailed to P.O. Box 968, Valdosta, GA 31603.