I once would have thought it laughable to say, but Slashdot's self-moderated discussions are a model of useful online commenting. (As wretched a hive of scum and villainy as it can seem sometimes, it's still way ahead of most newspaper comment sections I've seen.) It sounds like the Post is going to take a broadly similar approach; hopefully it works and more papers follow their example.

I have been deleted here a couple of times. But never, ever for venom and twaddle. I have simply been (sniff) misunderstood.

Even moderated sites get really nasty. The perps seem not to care as they manage to get the message out to whomever is the target. Sometimes the message is a thinly veiled death threat. One I know of is banned from the site but manages to get back with a new log in long enough to spread the hate and venom, all the while accusing the victim of being the perp, simply for believing what they do. And this is on a site for a major software provider.

Lawrence - If it was a major software vendor I don't understand a few things. Why isn't IP banning being used? And how are there victims and perps on a software (i'm assuming) support site? I don't understand.

Something needs to be done about this, it's gotten completely out of hand. It's interesting to see the level on nastiness and hate between different sites. Compare a similar news story on CNN and Fox, then go to the comments. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this already. The level of hatred and viciousness on Fox is incredible in comparison. I'm curious if this is because Fox doesn't monitor the comment pages and CNN does, or if it's just they average Fox reader? Does anyone know?

I would think there'd be a certain amount of self-regulation involved; after all, people have the option of not reading stuff (e.g., Fox News) that is distasteful to them.

Just a matter of time before some Postie Toastie gets the idea of selling access to its unmoderated top tier.

The only people surprised at the concentrated vile that's vomited all over newspaper Web sites are the people who've never worked for a paper. Back in the pre-Web days, vowel movements of all sorts were just as common, and any editor will tell you about the incoherent, illiterate, and libelous comments written on toilet paper with green crayon by his or her readership. Back then, though, the Letters to the Editor section was a great way to play "look at the freaks" whenever there wasn't a local science fiction convention to cover: among the few rational comments worthy of printing, toss in a couple of well-selected crank file letters, and watch the fun.

The problem, of course, is the idea that these were sifted and moderated back then: sure, you could take umbrage with having a letter denied, but it wasn't as if the paper gave you your very own space to wipe your metaphorical butt. Now, though, the idea is that readers will go elsewhere if they aren't allowed to let their id spew what it may. My response to this fallacy is "And what makes you think that you're losing out in this deal?"

On a side-note, I'm watching with great entertainment as two local publications re-establish their forums, after having stopped them for some time. With one, our local equivalent of the Portland Monthly, its readers are speaking what they really have to say, and the executive editor quickly removes any comments along the line of "the magazine would be readable if you just fired the executive editor." With our daily paper, though, it's going to be a rough row to hoe. The paper gleefully encouraged hatred and bigotry among its readers, most famed with its full-page ad telling John Kennedy that he wasn't welcome in Dallas. Now its sole readership consists of seventysomething shut-ins who turn every possible story into an excuse to scream at anyone more liberal than Newt Gingrich, and only now is there a concern about being polite on the forums.