Some sites leave much of the filtering up to the message-board users in hopes that the community will promote the appropriate level of decorum. Slashdot, an aggregation and comment site for what it calls "nerd-oriented news," has a revolving group of community moderators that are able to promote or demote comments through a scoring system. The goal, according to Slashdot's own FAQ message board, is to make the readers of the site take responsibility for what appears on it. Slashdot also gives comments higher scores when users are logged in and thus have a unique identity to which their comments can be tied.

Digg's system has a similar registration process by which users develop a reputation from their posts. The hope is that users will want to have a reputation for insightful thoughts and not, as the online community calls people who consistently post pointlessly negative comments, being a "flaming troll."

Adelson says Digg is working on additional moderation tools. "I haven't seen a perfect solution to the problem," says Adelson. "Digg has only just scratched the surface with its tools."

Perhaps the best moderation tool, says Jarvis, is joining in the conversation. He believes that if site owners and publications respond to commenters, users will consider the boards a place for adult conversation rather than a place for venomous rants.