I think I want you to tell us what you think … perhaps

Be careful what you wish for, Daily Herald.

We recently asked our online readers to tell us what they think of our stories, and, boy, have they.

It's called story commenting; frankly, nothing new in the industry, but new for us in the past few of weeks. Sign in, and give us your two cents. Your comments appear immediately after the story, followed by anyone else who might want to comment on the story, or, as often seems to be the case, on the previous commenter.

My first hard look at a reader comment came at the end of Part 1 of Christy Gutowski's two-part series last week prior to the start of the quadruple murder trial of Eric Hanson. I bragged about it internally, told my staff how the first part -- a narrative account of how authorities tracked down Hanson -- read like a novel. The first posting, though, lambasted our reporter, calling her a "cheerleader" for the prosecution. The good news, I thought, was several follow-up postings leapt to Christy's defense.

A story by Jake Griffin about the first month of our statewide smoking ban drew a whopping 118 comments, some of which continued a full week after the story published. I can't even begin to characterize the nature of the comments, which somehow evolved into a discussion of alcohol, addictions and a lot of other things.

These comments can be made under a cloak of anonymity, and in a shocking development, many people use that as a license to be crude, profane, personal, insulting. It also became clear to me that virtually any story will find people with dramatically different viewpoints.

Take a story we posted last week on the death of a Schaumburg man in a one-car crash. We had only the basics of the crash, weren't sure if any charges were going to be filed against the driver. About all we knew about the passenger, the late Michael Q. Bell, was that he had a substantial criminal history, namely a 2004 conviction of aggravated criminal sexual assault, armed robbery, kidnapping and aggravated battery.

We ran with that information, and some online readers bashed us but good, questioning our motives, sensitivity. Some called us racist (Bell was black). I talked to some editors here about whether Bell's criminal past should have been part of the story. Even they were divided on the issue. But readers weren't concerned with our angst. Here's one typical response:

"What in the world does his criminal past have to do with this story? This man was a passenger in a vehicle and DIED. Why do you feel it's necessary for us to read about horrible things he did in the past? … You should be ashamed."

And, frankly, some readers on the other side of the issue didn't make me feel any better. One said:

"Thin the herd. World's a better place. Wish more bad luck would happen to those whom deserve it."

The following day, we came back with a follow-up story. We interviewed Bell's mother, a minister, who talked about how her son was trying to get his life together, overcome the mistakes he had made. It's the type of story we would have liked to have done the first day.

The angry commenters were only slightly appeased.

The reporter, one said, "AND the editors of this newspaper owe an official apology for printing the horrible article that was in the paper yesterday."

Ditto the other side:

"Was he loving God and sharing God when he raped an disabled man. This monster got just what he deserved and can now eternally burn in hell."

I guess I shouldn't expect the debate to be all that civil when we give people such latitude. I'll admit I shared the casual reader's fascination with the vitriol some so readily spew. But I also felt like I needed to wash up afterward.

I also think this might keep us on our toes in a way we've never quite been challenged to do before.