I find this very same problem in a lot of comment sections and have asked our local paper, The Mansfield News Journal to look into this flaw within their comment section because many can use the 'report abuse' feature to irradicate an arguement while continuing to harass opponants unmercifully. The problem is, it not financially feasable to have someone review each comment. The smaller paper in Mount Vernon uses wordpress which does require moderation. I suggested to the News Journal to have on file the name of each contributor in case they cross the line.
Being the wife of a representative doesn't make your job any easier, either.
I agree with your point in this matter. If we want our representatives to be accountable, then so should we.
Thanks. John C. Davidson Bellville, Ohio

Thanks for this column! One of the wonderful things about the internet is that it allows such broad communication. Had I not seen you on a TV show I may never have read your books or Senator Brown's book on trade policy. I now know much more about many issues than I would otherwise. I have been amazed at what goes on at Cleveland.com. I see nothing positive from allowing the comments to get completely out of control. The same standards that are applied to letters published in the paper should be applied to comments. The instant part of the internet is not so useful if it causes what I see. If there are a few that cannot work with that, then they can move on. There is always the Drudge Report or whatever.

Nothing that can be done will completely dissuade those that want to be disruptive from being so. I think that we have seen that at some of the meetings held to discuss issues this summer. I am hopeful that the new format being adopted by PD will moderate things to the point where a level of civility is attained. It is interesting to get viewpoints from people that live in another part of the country from Southern California but not when is is so venomous and discouraging. Looking forward to coming back. Thanks, Jim Grissom

Here's my problem. I am a conservative politically and find comments like: "If there are a few that cannot work with that, then they can move on. There is always the Drudge Report or whatever." tend to make me wary of posting with my name. Perhaps I am being hypersensitive. I don't think so. My local paper finally did some clean up of its anonymous comments pages. From reading them you'd think that we are a people who can't spell, punctuate, or express an opinion without tearing down different races, even when the article had nothing to do with that. But it is this sort of dig which upsets me the most. it says that while "broad communication" seems to be the objective, my comments probably will receive short shrift or label me a...can't actually choose which word to use...
BLUhrig