It SEEMS nice for editors to ensure that online comments are "civil" by deleting vulgarity or personal attacks or by prior screening of new comments by repeat offenders. 

But demanding "civility" can be used as a coverup for suppression of viewpoints.  That's clear on college campuses where civility speech codes are wielded by leftist professors or students as weapons to suppress conservative speech.  At private colleges or privately owned propaganda factories like Civil Beat (note my "uncivil" label there!) viewpoint censorship is legally allowed; but government-run institutions get sued successfully for violating 1st Amendment free speech rights. 

It's important to expose the hypocrisy of a so-called public-service newspaper which pretends to provide fair and balanced discussion of issues while actually suppressing views disliked by owners and editors under the guise of maintaining "civility."  Requiring readers to judge civility is merely a method for crowdsourcing of censorship.