On October 12, the Plain Dealer announced a change in the commenting policy on Cleveland.com.

I wasn't actually aware there had been a commenting policy at Cleveland.com, unless "free for all" could be considered a policy. PD editors and/or Cleveland.com seemed to be aware of this to some extent, closing comments altogether on stories that would be particularly susceptible to the free-flowing nastiness that often rages in the site's comment threads. Now, the PDs John Kroll says the paper is "fighting back," making an effort to better enforce the site's community rules, including removing comments that break the site's rules, disabling comments when things get out of hand and banning users who continue to behave like – in Internet parlance – trolls. It's a positive development, but naturally the PD is already getting a ration of heat over the announcement. Commenter endlesswar remarked, "...disabling comments on some posts and much of the editing done to comments is not in good the [sic] spirit of an open forum."

Well, perhaps not, but neither is the kind of garbage that multiplies unabated in the bowels of the Cleveland.com comment threads. Entering an open forum does not mean to drop your manners and your brains at the door and be as objectionable as you like. You may be sitting in front of the computer in your underwear, happily eating a pastrami sandwich and dispensing your bon mots safe from the prying eyes of the world, but you are still taking part in a very human interaction. The least you can do, then, is be human.

Websites have struggled to create commenting policies that assure some level of civil discourse. And sometimes, they are criticized for seemingly arbitrary decisions about what constitutes an inappropriate comment. It seems that, on the web, nobody's perfect – just like here in the real world. And in the real world, if you don't have anything nice to say...don't create a disposable screen name and say it on the Internet.

Go here to view OhioAuthority's commenting policy.