Within hours of the Gazette posting its first online stories about President Obama’s vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, comments began pouring into the newspaper website at vineyardgazette.com. The comments fell into two general categories: warm welcomes to the President and his family and negative, frequently nasty remarks about him and his presidency.

Because few, if any comments advanced any substantive discussion or had any specific relevance to the Vineyard, the decision was made to put a moratorium on online comments on stories about the president’s visit. The Gazette is devoted exclusively to the interests of Dukes County, so when the President comes to the Island, it’s a news story. But it’s important to note that we cover the President’s vacation because the President is visiting Martha’s Vineyard, not because the newspaper is endorsing him or his politics. There are plenty of other places to discuss national politics online.

Whether and how to allow online comments is an issue that occupies many media websites these days. Last week, National Public Radio’s website, npr.org, announced it was discontinuing all online comments, noting that commenters represented a tiny fraction of its user base. Other news websites have stopped allowing anonymous comments or proactively tried to shift discussion to other channels like Facebook.

At the Gazette, we regularly revisit our own practice. In general, the Gazette accepts online comments on all local stories we report, though not every comment is published. As we have since we began posting stories online, we reserve the right to review comments before they go live. Libelous, scurrilous and just plain tasteless comments are rejected, but the newspaper also tries hard to balance the positive with the negative so as not to censor divergent points of view. Comments that are signed with an actual first and last name and an Island location are more likely to be approved than ones with an invented moniker, but the latter will be published if they are respectful and add something to the discussion. This is not perfect science; some will no doubt disagree with our choices.

The Gazette still receives many useful comments on its website including corrections of fact and grammar, historical background and relevant information not covered by a story. Other comments express opinions about a local topic or take issue with some aspect of our reporting. There’s little question that the ability to comment anonymously can give undue voice to bullies and people with axes to grind, but it also provides an outlet for readers to express their legitimate disagreement with a governmental decision or with the Gazette itself.

So for the moment we continue our practice of allowing, but moderating online comments.

We welcome thoughts and suggestions about the value of these, and how we could do this better.