Times closes off site comments temporarily due to high traffic

The Watertown Daily Times had to close off comments Tuesday for stories on its Web site because of overwhelming traffic demands.

A Watertown Daily Times story on Amish families being exempt from the new federal health-care mandate that appeared in the Saturday paper was linked late Monday on The Drudge Report, a Web site that primarily provides links to content providers, such as newspapers and magazines. More than 32,000 visitors came to the Times site through Drudge on Monday. By noon Tuesday, an additional 76,000 visitors had come to the Times site.

"We can handle the traffic of people just coming to our site, but many are trying to post comments," said Robert D. Gorman, managing editor of the Times. "Our site has had no problems processing hundreds of comments over the course of a day, but this is the first time our site has had to process hundreds in an hour. It just started slowing down our computer use in the building and attempts by readers to join in the conversation."

Mr. Gorman said that comments would be turned back on soon, and that, "We'll then make a few internal changes so that next time we don't get stymied by our own success."