"We know you like to have your fun, voice your opinions, and argue over your favorite gear, but over the past few days the tone in comments has really gotten out of hand," Engadget editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky said in a post explaining the move.

"What is normally a charged -- but fun -- environment for our users and editors has become mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations... and that's just not acceptable," Topolsky said.

"Some of you out there in the world of anonymous grandstanding have gotten the impression that you run the place, but that's simply not the case," he said.

Topolsky said the "bad eggs" in the commenting community "don't speak for most people who come to Engadget looking for tech news.

"Regardless, we're going to crank things down for a little bit to let everyone just cool off, and we'll switch them back on when we feel like we've shaken some of the trolls and spammers loose from the branches," he said.

Engadget's move highlights a problem experienced by some other websites that allow unfiltered comments from users.

Some websites use software programs to delete comments containing flagged words or employ human editors to trawl through remarks and excise those seen as inappropriate.