It’s been fun to watch the Great Falls Tribune struggle with how to deal with on-line comments – especially the ones that are a little nasty.

Many newspapers are having problems adapting to the new type of discussion that used to happen at the coffee shops or around the water fountain. In fact, with circulation down, people being laid off or having their jobs shipped to who knows where, many newspapers are attempting to get in the social networking express lane and using their newspaper websites as a place to foster discussion.

As I have written before, I don’t really care for reporters who blog or newspapers that support blogs. They can’t beat us, so they tread into our territory, but I regress…

In 2010 if a newspaper story ticks someone off, a person can just head to their laptop and type a zinger of a comment in the comment section of the story, and BAM!

It seems every few months the Tribune runs an editorial from their leaders telling folks to be nice when they leave comments on-line. It hasn’t been working too well, so they did another editorial the day after Christmas warning their on-line community they had better watch out.

They listed three rules to “crackdown” on on-line conduct, like no name calling, stay on topic, and no hijacking.

I say, “Bwahahahaha!!”

It’s pretty basic what the Tribune needs to do if they want to get a handle on the bad behavior: hire someone (a moderator) to review all comments before they are posted. Set up the website’s comment section so that all comments must be moderated. Sure it will cost money, but being a leader does…

Of course, the three rules the Tribune posted are a good rules to follow. But this is the wild and wonderful internet – it is untamed – somewhat like Montana was when Lewis and Clark first visited…

The Tribune is pretty far behind the other major dailies in the state (and some television stations) in the social networking realm. If the Trib hired a moderator, the same person could also ramp up the Tribune’s fledgling Facebook and Twitter accounts where more and more people are getting their news.

Here’s an easy example for the Trib leadership to heed: Every comment this wonderful website gets is first reviewed by a moderator (me) before it sees the light of day (posted in the comment section). Some people don’t like it and they go elsewhere – and that’s their choice. I really don’t care. Other websites don’t care what the commentators say, and that’s their choice.

For a frequently-visited website like the Tribune, it would soon weed out the nasty folks.

One other thing to remember: This is the internet – you can’t stop it, you can only hope to contain it…