Let's begin with some truisms: a newspaper is not a blog-not even its online version. Conversely, a blog is not a newspaper. However, newspapers have been in the toilet lately, partly due to the proliferation of blogs. One easy pseudo-solution some newspapers have settled on is to act more and more like blogs. After all, this 2.0 world is all about "You," the user, which in practice means it's all about a false sense of democracy through publication of comments and user-generated content-just like a common blog. After the jump: why newspapers should stop slumming as blogs and disallow comments.

Get in line, the bread's here. But only six of you are going to get any. Why? Because these are hard times and experiments have failed, and theories are grand but practice is hard work. So put out those little mitts of yours and trudge after the jump to see who eats this week.

Executions started with the goal that commenters would come to be respected. A part of me hoped that Gawker commenters could rise above the scene of thoughtless vitriol spewed by anonymous office drones and 12-year-olds, to not be mentioned in trend pieces that try to co-opt what it means to be mocked on the internet. Because these days, everyone hates anonymous bile, unless it's funny. I hoped to force the Gawker commenters into the former category. And it seems to be working. Maybe too well.

Internet person Rex Sorgatz put the pieces together-the New York story on the mean Brownstoner commenter, the Times story on commenters running the asylums, and finally last week's Time piece that was kinda-sorta in defense of anonymous nastiness. Commenters are a trend! Everyone is basically terrified of them! And this weekend, former blog entrepreneur Jason Calacanis up and quit the internet. Or, at least, he quit blogging. And started a private email list! Which is basically the definitive proof that the War is Over and the Commenters Won.

Commie time! Usually I'll collect comment-of-the-week picks from the other writers and let you know who selected what, but I think that makes it seem like only they liked that comment. So while there is input from four of us after the jump, I'll just keep anonymous. Because everyone loved everyone this week. And that's the way it should be.

Every so often, usually on Fridays, I see someone post a comment along the lines of, "This is execution bait," or "Ketch hasn't filled his quota yet," or "I am allowed to behave like a feckless prat in the comments because the subject matter of this post is sensitive." I don't really have a problem with the first two sample quotes, but I think that they lead to the third. In a way, I am thankful. Anyone addled enough to believe that their racist/sexist/stupidest thoughts are welcome simply because the subject matter of a post deals with someone else's racist/sexist/stupidest thoughts is clearly not long for this commenting world. However, I worry that some of the soon-to-be-deceased see the suggestion of "baiting" as their invitation to be annoying. And that is, well, really annoying. To clarify: no one is asking you to be offensive, ever. Anyways, on to the bloodshed!

The "what is to be done about out-of-control commenters in the wild world of Web 2.0" article has been written again, this time by Time. We're only mentioning it because the articles notes that while yes, commenters are mean and out of hand, at least ours are witty! (YouTube's commenters can't even graciously accept a cute video of a gerbil.) Gawker comments, Lev Grossman writes, are "often funnier and cleverer than the posts they comment on." Hey!!

Another great big drunken commenter meet-up is in the works. "Say It To My Face," the 2nd Gawker Commenters Ball, hosted by commenters thesupergoddess, BK_KT, CodePink, Phyllis Neffler, Unfun, sassypants, and saltwatertaffy (all ladies, all fabulous) will be at Cafe Charbon on the Lower East Side, Friday July 25th starting at 7pm. Come, drink, meet nice people, and help me up off the floor.

Former Gawker commenter Newtojezebel has been banned for nine months now, which is probably some sort of record, but apparently people continue talking about her, all the time. She was banned for seeming a little unstable, so naturally she decided to contact former Gawker editor Alex Balk, via fax for some reason, to ask him to please email all of you to explain that she is not him. Balk, of course, is too busy writing on issues of great international import at Radar to do this on his own, so we've decided to help. You follow? Just read it!

Happy Pride weekend y'all! I hope you'll celebrate somehow, in any small way, because the gays love you and you should love us. I, particularly, love the six commenters who will be awarded with Commies—which recognize the best comments of the week—after the jump.

Do you like the new site design? The black? I think it's lovely. Reminiscent of DEATH. This is step 1 in my plan to turn Gawker into Jack Ketch's Blog of Commenter Executions and Pictures of Medieval Siege Weaponry. It's a new direction for the site, but think of the pageview counts when Gawker is the number 1 result for "Trebuchet" Google searches! None of this is true, really. I actually have no power. Which should be obvious, as most of my victims just return a few days later and continue the schtick they died for in the first place. It's a hard life, but a just one. After the jump, you shall find a few more victims to mourn until they return in 5 hours.

A boxing match, to be specific. I'm in! [Craigslist]

"What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade." —Gertrude Jekyll. Enjoy your Commies for best comments of the week, before the glory fades, after the jump.

This weekend marks the official beginning of summer. People will be celebrating in various ways. Some of you have been celebrating this summer's eve in a, heh, literal manner, meaning you've been unnecessarily rude or crude or just plain dead wrong—we're trying to raise the level of discourse here—this week, you'll meet your warm, sunny doom after the jump.

Chelsea Alvarez-Bell, the blogger who furiously quit her job with Seattle's Stranger yesterday because all the commenters were mean has returned briefly with a triumphant fuck-you to the angry mob. It turns out that her boss "was disappointed that I was quitting, and that he would like to up the ante. One dollar for every comment on ‘Fuck This, I'm Out' posted before 4 pm… if I was willing to write about how I spent the money. I agreed, and since then have been hitting refresh on the thread, watching the money roll in. I saw a lot of assholes being assholes, and nice people being nice. But what I was really glad to see was people discussing the state of the comments on Slog, which I hoped would happen."

From our official Commenter Executioner, Jack Ketch: See the title? Get it? Because it's Friday the 13th and now you are dead! I was going to start this post with a history of Friday the 13th, why it's considered unlucky, and what a typical English Friday the 13th consisted of in my time. But then I realized I don't know anything about this day, and have been living here in the future for so long that I'm basically a lazy, ignorant, and slovenly American by this point. I can't even be bothered to write my posts in old timey English. I'll probably have to execute myself soon. So, it's Friday the 13th, which is bad if bad things happen to you today. Look both ways before crossing the street, don't stand near out of order elevator shafts, and make sure to wear your hat really low if you go wilding. They have cameras everywhere now. Fucking cameras. Let us jump, and please be careful not to slip, to the fun part.

"Fuck this, I'm out of here," declares Chelsea Alvarez-Bell, blogging for Seattle's Stranger, at the end of what has obviously been a long guest-blogging stint. "I have no desire to contribute here any longer. I am taking my ball and going home. I was warned beforehand that some of the commenters on Slog could be mean. That was an understatement. The word I would use is cruel." Oh noes! The idea of mean commenters (or awe-inducing donators of labor, as a certain novelist likes to call them) taking over blogs and ruining the Internet has been quite the trend lately. Anyone got a problem with that?

Don't forget! Tonight, starting at 7. The Scratcher bar, at 5th and Bowery.

Hey there. Mind if I overshare for sec? Okay, so this morning I thought I'd slip out for a little siesta because it's 700 degrees in New York, but as soon as I reached my siesta spot, I fell into a deep, black pit of brooding and could hardly drag myself back. No, I was not drinking. Here's the problem. After all this time and so many executions some commenters still don't fucking get it. I know, I know, I'm supposed to ignore the stupids and the mean-freaks but the fact is it's just me for two days straight, only 12 to 15 items per day and every fucked-up, wrongheaded comment feels tremendously amplified. So for the very few of you who still don't understand that we have rules here, I am going to ask you to at least observe the following.

"Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find ''tomorrow' on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday's defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, 'If I had my life to live over again.' Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." — Og Mandino. But, eh, fuck it. Your rewards are after the jump.