Last Thursday, the washingtonpost.com turned off the comment feature on their blog. The decision was made after Deborah Howell's editorial about Jack Abramoff directing contributions to democrats brought on a torrent of vitriolic comments from readers.

It begs the question - how should an organization manage the balance between "transparency and openness" and control of their message? Its a question that used to need answering only by online community purveyors. Today, every organization using the web to distribute their message needs to be paying close attention to this debate.

Yesterday, washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady hosted a live online discussion on this very issue (a timely move toward transparency in the wake of their very closed shut-down of user comments). The panel included blogosphere biggies Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Jay Rosen of PressThink, and Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit

Here's some goodies from the conversation:

On civility:

I love open comments, just as I love free beer, free pizza... But I'm not entitled to them. And those who partake, I think, owe a certain degree of civility to their hosts.

In an age where there's less control, I think that such informal measures matter more, not less.

Glen Reynolds

On the value in being open:

The age of controlled conversation is over. The age of open conversation is here. But that is damned hard for the controllers to get used to. And I don't say that with the pejorative edge it seems to indicate. The journalists thought it was their job -- emphasis on job, responsibility, value -- to control by verifying and judging and so on. If the job, instead, is to enable [emphasis mine], then you have to start exercising new muscles. And it is important to keep in mind that a democracy is better served by the airing of more viewpoints and perspectives. And journalism is better served by the exposing of more news.

Jeff Jarvis