First, we had to eliminate commenting from our obituaries.

We learned this by rude experience immediately after we first allowed commenting on JSOnline. Possessed by a meanness that is hard for people of goodwill to comprehend, strangers hiding in online anonymity would spit venom beneath the story of a deceased person they had chosen to hate — because of occupation, race, education, religion, political leaning, nation of origin or maybe just because they had led an admirable life.

Next, we had to block comments from many stories about life in the city.

If you think racism is largely a sin of the past in America, you haven't seen what some will say from under the hood of a digital avatar or phony name. Last Sunday's story about the city's 152 homicide victims — nearly all of them young, some of them infants and children — brought out the very worst among us, including one anonymous coward who emailed that he wished the death toll were higher.

Many stories draw hundreds, even thousands of comments, posted all hours day and night. We don't have the staff to prescreen or continually read all comments. Our readers help us flag people who break the rules so we can take the comments down and suspend or revoke their privileges.

Problem is, the rule breakers return under new names and emails.

Starting on Feb. 15, we will finally have the technology available to restrict online commenting to paid subscribers. And that's what we will do.

We offer commenting to encourage a forum for civil conversation, a place where folks from various walks of life can contribute their personal knowledge, thoughts and expertise. Before writing their first comment, users agree to follow basic rules of civil behavior: no personal attacks, harassment, threats, obscenities, bearing of false witness and so on.

Many of our paying customers have asked us to do a better job enforcing those rules. As one put it, the worst comments "contribute to the divisiveness and lack of civility we are experiencing" and also "allow paid operatives the opportunity to stir the pot."

In eight days, all comments will be tied to a subscriber account. It won't matter then if the offender creates a new screen name or email. We will know who it is.

We will still allow people to comment under a screen name, at least for now. Many folks have been writing civil, thoughtful notes for years under nicknames they are now known by within their commenting community. This is especially true with our sports stories. We also want whistle-blowers to be able to share information about, say, government corruption they have witnessed, without fear of losing their jobs.

But rule breakers will no longer be able to hide their identities from us, enabling us to provide a more civil commenting platform than ever before.

As one thoughtful reader noted: "The MJS sends trained reporters to collect data, sift the information and piece together a story that, as accurately as possible, reflects some version of reality. It is then edited and printed. There is, obviously, no such process at work with the 'commentators.' They have free access to deliver what Gene Weingarten referred to as 'little spit-flecked rants.' ... These, in a way, become a part of the story that you are presenting to the public."

Indeed, researchers have found that online comments can affect reader opinions. Which is why all of us should also be aware that some corporations, industries and politicians hire communications staff and agencies to search for stories on the Internet that mention them and then write comments designed to enhance their image while diminishing their critics.

I expect some of our critics to proclaim that we are somehow violating their First Amendment rights against government censorship by insisting they follow the rules they agreed to before commenting. We are merely exercising our rights to limit our forums to known customers who wish to contribute to civil discussions.

Anyone blocked from writing on JSOnline is still free to take their opinions elsewhere — from digital platforms with looser rules to their corner tavern. At least there, they might be answered with a well-deserved punch in the nose.

George Stanley is the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached via email at gstanley@journalsentinel.com and followed on Twitter @geostanley.