Compelling news stories and editorials generate lots of comments from readers and we have had many of those kinds of stories in the past week. Hundreds of comments were posted to those stories. But dozens of otherwise good comments were not posted because of one offensive phrase or word. That’s all it takes – one rotten word or phrase and a moderator will hit the delete button and the comment is gone.

Why so strict? For two reasons: 1) Offensive remarks don’t foster a civil discussion, which is what we try to create at deseretnews.com; and 2) Experience has shown that letting one comment through (and some do get by us) with an offensive word can launch a thread of reaction that focuses entirely on that comment and not on the story or editorial.

Offensive remarks range from swearing and vulgarities to rude rantings and name-calling. We have also run into some creative acronyms that require a consultation with urbandictionary.com for the latest definitions. When they have slipped by us, more informed readers have let us know and we catch it after the fact. Other terms that tend to set people off are sucks, screwed, crap, moron, idiot, shut up and others that may seem harmless to some but highly offensive to others.

In most cases, commenters don’t need to use these terms to get their point across. And it pains us when an otherwise articulate, well-reasoned and well-written comment is rendered useless by an offensive and unnecessary zinger at the end.

Keep it clean and keep it civil.