It's the unfortunate thing about the Internet. You don't have to use your real name, and you don't have to look anyone in the eye, so civility goes out the window.

I work for a newspaper, and a couple of years ago we opened our Web site up to comments. It was one of the worst things we ever did. We had mean and nasty people. We had wild accusations being made against public officials with no evidence to back it up. We had personal attacks on both our writers and other posters. I even had a personal attack made against my two-year-old son after I included him in a restaurant review I wrote. The attitude was anything goes, and at times, it made me not want to go out in my town, knowing these nasty, crazy people were out there. (Of course, I soon realized I had nothing to worry about because these folks were at their computer making nasty comments 24-7 and not out in public. :p )

Thankfully, we've recently started moderating it and removing inappropriate comments and banning repeat offenders. The thing had turned into a cess pool and the only people commenting were the same five or six bitter, hateful people. Now it's a better place, though I still see a comment every now and then that just makes me scratch my head and wish I had as much time on my hands as these folks do.