Web site comments spiral out of control

An Oct. 30 news story about a home football game has sparked an exceeding amount of community attention on the Nevada Daily Mail, leading the newspaper's management to put a stop to comments for that story.

The game -- Nevada vs. Carthage in the season finale at Logan Field -- was an intense contest that featured a number of flags on both sides of the field, some of them for unsportsmanlike conduct.

"The story certainly attracted attention -- comments poured into the site. But as time went on, it became apparent that at least some of the commenters were probably the same few people at the same location, using several screen names and pretending to be someone else. That's an abuse of the system that does more harm in the community than good. On our Web site, we try to give commenters as much latitude as we can, to encourage public discussion. But instead of using the site as intended -- a public forum to share ideas and add thoughtful input to issues -- a few of the commenters resorted to deceit and personal attacks. We had no choice but to shut down comments on this story," said Nevada Daily Mail editor Lynn A. Wade.

Those comments began as simple discussion of issues between the two teams on the field and escalated to attacks on players, coaches and other commenters and eventually to suggestions of possible coaching changes. Nevada High School Athletic Director Kevin McKinley, citing personnel issues, declined to comment about the validity of any of these accusations. The escalation of the comments beyond the simple discussion forum that the Daily Mail's Web site is intended to be ultimately resulted in the complete removal of the story from the site.

Nevada R-5 Assistant Superintendent Tyson Beshore said comments also became disruptive to the school environment, so much so that the district blocked access to the Nevada Daily Mail's Web site Wednesday afternoon in an effort to rein in the chaos. "I really hated to have to do it. We want the students and the staff to be able to access the site," and oftentimes, "People bring up a lot of good points" in comments; but the problems stemming from comments to this story had escalated quickly.

Beshore also believes people were signing on and pretending to be someone else, and people had complained that students were challenging them about their Web site comments when they hadn't written anything. Beshore emphasized that he believes people should have the opportunity to share their thoughts -- positive and negative -- and that limiting access is a last resort he doesn't take lightly.

The Daily Mail never takes such freedoms lightly, either. As a rule, all other options will and have always been exercised before the limitation of such comments is considered. However, as a result of the escalation of the comments on the aforementioned game story, the Daily Mail has been left with no other alternative than to continue to deny comments on this story as well.