The downside of readers' comments

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Here's an interesting article by the editor of the Globe Gazette about the less than positive experience he had of letting readers post comments on stories - an experience that led him to scale down the number of articles he allowed to be commented on...

"You might think our in-box would have been full of congratulations and good wishes for continued success for the subject of this particular story.

"But the only three I remember seeing were derogatory at best. I cringed when posting them to the site, but did so because I’d said just days before that we would refuse to post only those comments that were vulgar or libelous, and not just because we disagreed with the opinion of the writer."