Please just get rid of them. Your poll you did awhile back showed a huge support at getting rid of them. They ruin the site. Thanks

Just get rid of the comments altogether. People are too mean and nasty and it takes too much of your time to moderate (not to mention I question the subjectivity of some of your moderators). Maybe if the PD freed up all the time spent on moderating comments, there would be more time to write quality - and preferably unbiased - articles.

ditch them…I become infuriated more times than not when I read them…and then I retaliate by posting things that I would NOT say out loud in the living room to another person.

unfortunately there is such a partisan divide in this country right now, that many people are incapable of civil behavior on forums like these–and yes–I am counting myself as one of them.

I have read more racist and homophobic slurs on this site than some right-wing blogs that I occasionally visit just to check the pulse of the wack-jobs.

seriously-get rid of them-and the people who slam your paper don’t pay for it anyway-they BRAG about that very fact in many of their posts. I fully admit to being an unapologetic liberal…and I am exhausted reading the relentless-and more importantly-baseless attacks against Obama and anyone else who doesn’t worship at the shrine of Beck and Limbaugh.

I respect the views of moderates like Joe Scarborough, and to some degree even Peggy Noonan and David Brooks-but the clowns who troll your Comments sections are far right idealogues who spout repulsive rhetoric-much of it designed to denigrate entire classes of people.

Let them troll the Drudge Report and Fox News’ web sites.

I agree that you should get rid of them. A lot of postings are by the same angry, disgruntled people. And I think it’s a waste of the PD’s talent to spend hours and hours monitoring comments. I want to continue to see quality stories instead.

I appreciate the early responses here. Yes it takes a lot of time to moderate these, and even at that, we don’t always do it well.

We’re hoping for an end to the slurs, whichever side they come from.

We’re still in business to help our community thrive. … and conversation has got to be part of the community. So we’re not giving up … yet.

Now the PD will be accused of censorship. Your premsie–that “most comments add insight or information”–is, in my view, faulty. The bulk of the comments I have viewed contain either uninformed opinion, malicious gossip, or tasteless attempts at humor (or are reactions to these sorts of comments). If the PD is committed to allowing comments, why not eliminate all censorship but require commenters to post under their actual names? I believe most of the hateful and insensitive comments are posted by people hiding behind aliases because they would be embarrassed to say the same things in public.

Jackal is onto something… the more transparency you can have with commenters, the better the quality of the comments will be.

The idea of only allowing real names is good, but right now, we don’t have sufficient tools to verify.

I do hope the moderators will nix the comments by those folks who employ their manufactured word of “libtards.” Its use is simply cruel.
I have repeatedly asked those individuals to desist with its usage to no avail.

Additionally - why is it so hard for some posters to use forms of correct (and polite) address, as well as to continually use diminutives to show disdain?

Back in the erly part of this year Mr. McClellan wrote a very pointed article which addressed the lack of civility afforded by the availability of anonymity. I believe that the same requirement of a “real” name as demanded for paper-published Letters to the Editor should be required in the online version. Truly, this is the only way that some form of civility can be restored.
I always use my actual name, and to those who fear “reprisals” by telephone response - the only times I have been subjected to this have been involving comments about the No Real Acumen group.

I would doubt that many of the anonymous posters are subscribers to the “real” paper anyway - but many like to bite the hand that makes their endeavors possible.

Thank you…I appreciate your efforts to create an open dialogue and it seems that we often drift off topic, become hostile, personally denigrate the views and character of other commenters. I would love to see a site where we express our ideas and thoughts clearly and disagree civilly.

–It is revealing you are so concerned now that you have your Manchurian in place. I don’t recall any concern when GWB was caricatured as a chimp, or it was said “he makes a good excuse for a new L.Harvey Oswald.”

–Jackal has a thought I’ve expressed on other threads. Post as yourself, if you can’t verify, you can’t post. Spend the time and resources in I.D. verification, and forget about being a nanny.

–Moderation or censorship is not the answer.

———Karl Schmitz———