Thanks for clearing this up a bit Maria. I understand that you don't want to babysit the comments 24/7 and you shouldn't have to. Sometimes it is important for people's peers to call them out if they are flaming. Even if it's not something that would get their comment flagged. Everyone is held accountable and if they post something then they should be prepared for people to post different viewpoints (as I have found out many times).
I don't want to be the person that stands back and watches a good, important topic get derailed by someone. But almost anytime comments are allowed people will drift off of the topic and many times will get into heated debates.
Most of the time I would like to see the debate continue because I learn from it. Which is why I was serious when I said I wish you had an unmonitored forum page where we could say "This is off topic but I would love to talk more about this with you on the forum" and then continue there so that a good news piece doesn't get it's thunder stollen by off topic jibber jabber. So just sayin.... if you put up a forum I would write there. :) And I bet it would become pretty busy and would be a good place to sell ad space too.