Tim Sprinkle

User Comments on News Sites: Burden or Benefit?

CNN takes on the increasingly sensitive subject of user comments on news site. You know, those nasty posts that often take up more space than they should on local news outlets' web sites.

Looks like some papers are taking a stand are are cutting off the flow, which is something that the New York Times and other big outlets have been doing for a while. Is this a free speech issue?

(CNN) -- User comments on news sites, while vital to interactive storytelling in the digital age, often read like scribblings on a bathroom stall: anonymous, offensive and full of hate.

"I hate what you people, and by that I mean the blacks, are doing to this city," wrote one Buffalo News reader last month in response to a story about a local shooting. "Each area you move too [sic] quickly becomes over run [sic] with crime, loud music [at] all hours, adults swearing and screaming at kids, children playing in the street, porches with beer and garbage thrown all around."

Rants like this one prompted the Buffalo, New York, newspaper to discontinue anonymous user comments on its website as of August 2. Commenters will be required to register with their name, city of residence and phone number -- more information than most news sites require -- and staffers will attempt to verify their identities.

"It is the ability to remain anonymous that encourages people to say whatever they want [online] ... when people are required to give their names, our thinking is that they'll think twice," said news editor Margaret Sullivan, who added that vetting commenters will be a "challenging" task. "There might be people who slip through the cracks."

Like those bathroom-stall messages, online comments on news stories can be difficult to police. For years, many publications have tried to strike a balance between encouraging open communication among readers and maintaining civil discourse. But a few sites, fed up with rude or inflammatory comments, are taking bold new steps to raise the level of dialogue.