That’s the question from Jonathan Weber, publisher of NewWest.net, Times columnist and our close friend, in his most recent column. Jonathan acknowledges the most annoying thing about this whole Web 2.0 era: everybody, even the obnoxious, have a say in a particular discussion topic.

What do you do
with a commenter who is simply obnoxiously argumentative, he writes, to the point where
people don’t want to enter the conversation because they don’t want to
subject themselves to a rhetorical bludgeoning by someone who is articulate
and informed, but perhaps has too much time on his hands?

What do you do with a commenter who always wants to shift the discussion to a
particular hot-button issue, which might have little or nothing to do with
the story at hand?

How do you handle a situation where someone is being compensated for promoting
a product or service or political point of view in a comment thread? How do
you even distinguish between someone who is a paid shill, and someone who
believes strongly in something and also happens to have a job that involves
advocating that belief?

As Jonathan writes, there is software that can help you vet comments,
but he’s not impressed. In the end, NewWest relies primarily on its
editors.

Firstly, Matt & I concur wholeheartedly with Jonathan’s scepticism
about a technological fix. As anybody who’s ever used comment filtering
software (and blog filters, as well) will attest, they are simply a
waste of time and money. If a reader objects, we’d like to hear about
it.

Jonathan ends with this query:

We’re genuinely puzzled over how to handle some of these things. If you have
any suggestions, well, leave them in the comments below.

Our suggestion: you have to do it yourself. I know. It can be
incredibly tedious at times, but it takes a human sensibility to make
sense of humans.