CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 02: The offices of the Chicago Sun-Times sit along the Chicago River on December 2, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. Guild member are expected to vote today on an agreement reached between Wrapports, publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times and other Chicago-area publications, and the Chicago Newspaper Guild for a new three-year contract. Reports suggest the new contract could lead to the company rehiring four of the 28 people that were laid-off last spring when the company eliminated the photography staffs at the Sun-Times and their other newspapers opting to rely on freelance photographers, reporters, and other sources for the images used in the publications. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The Chicago Sun-Times has temporarily turned off reader commenting on its website's articles until it can figure out how to stop the "negativity," "racism" and "hate speech" that floods its pages, the Sun-Times Media Group announced.

Managing editor Craig Newman wrote in a post Saturday that the "tone and quality" of the reader comments often results in "an embarrassing mishmash of fringe ranting and ill-informed, shrill bomb-throwing," and the staffers are "sick" of it.

"The world of Internet commenting offers a marvelous opportunity for discussion and the exchange of ideas," Newman wrote. "But as anyone who has ever ventured into a comment thread can attest, these forums too often turn into a morass of negativity, racism, hate speech and general trollish behaviors that detract from the content."

The Sun-Times stressed that it is not "doing away" with comments forever, but that they are taking time to create a new system for commenting that will include a more efficient way to monitor comments and "foster a productive discussion."

Something fundamentally wrong when publishers think solution to bad comments is completely killing them http://t.co/qmfxFj6flo — amanda zamora (@amzam) April 13, 2014

"Sun-Times kills comments until it can fix ‘morass of negativity, racism, and hate speech’"- so until the internet stops being the internet? — Jason Heyward Respecter (@StartKyleOrton) April 14, 2014

@DavidOrmsby you can't be an online media service and then Shut off commenting because some people are mean. @Suntimes — Kyle Hillman (@kylehillman) April 12, 2014

Publisher and editor-in-chief of the Sun-Times Jim Kirk responded to the criticism on Sunday, telling blogger Robert Feder that the company hopes their readers will be patient while they work towards a fair system.