From Julie Wright, ADN managing editor --

We've had more complaints than usual lately about the hostile, crude and uncivil nature of comments on our stories and blog posts. I've spent more time than usual the past couple of days looking at the comments, and I have to agree that they've taken a turn for the worse. We've allowed a relatively free flow of ideas in hopes of stimulating a vigorous conversation about happenings in our state. The problem is that the comments now threaten to become so toxic that they kill any chance for civil, quality conversation among thoughtful readers.

So, beginning now, we are going to more strictly apply the rules that we've always had in place for comments on stories and blogs. When we see them, we will delete comments that are off topic, crude, attack other posters or are part of an apparent campaign to spam the boards with messages. We will ban users whose comments are particularly egregious, those who show a pattern of unwillingness to follow the rules and spammers. We will continue to allow critical comments about public figures and subjects of stories, but we will not allow crude comments about them or their personal lives. We will also block users who report abuse on others' comments just because they disagree with them.

In the past we've warned people and given them several chances to change their ways before blocking them, but under the current circumstances we're going to block users after their first violation of the terms of use if the violation is significant.

We hope this will result in more thoughtful comments and debates on our site. If it doesn't, we will consider killing or moderating the comments.

Send questions or comments to me at jwright@adn.com.