LA Times to ditch current reader comments

The Los Angeles Times website is replacing its old commenting feature on Thursday and replacing it with a new comment engine. I'm not one to argue there's a lot of value in reader comments on newspaper stories, but it is surprising to read that those thousands of racist, profane and unintelligible utterings — along with many, many gems I'm sure — are just going to be thrown away. But that's what it sounds like is planned in the message to readers from website honcho Jimmy Orr.