Larryville.com, an often-raucous community Web site that has been a source of information and irritation for community leaders, may shut down by the end of the month.

In a weekend posting on the site, manager Doug DuBois said he would be willing to let another person or organization take over the site, if they shared his vision for it.

“If not,” DuBois wrote, “the site will be reduced in scope or simply shut down.”

He declined to comment to the Journal-World.

DuBois started Larryville.com six years ago, providing a site where Lawrence residents — many of them posting under pseudonyms — complained and discussed the city’s political and cultural issues. One potential Douglas County Commission candidate even tested the political waters in 2000 by asking Larryville.com readers how they would receive her candidacy; she decided not to run.

In a profile on the site, DuBois said he wanted Larryville to be a place “where locals can discuss issues that concern, amuse or delight them, in a considerate and respectful manner.”

In the community, news of the site’s possible demise was met with sadness — and a sense that discussion on the forum had devolved into something less considerate and respectful than DuBois’ vision.

“I’m not sure that it changed any policies or ultimately changed the nature of any of the issues,” Mayor David Dunfield said Monday. “But I think it certainly did get people involved in discussing the issues who may not have been involved, who may not have had the opportunity to discuss things in quite that public a forum.”

Not every community leader had the stomach for the rough-and-tumble of the site’s dialogue.

¢Larryville.com

“I went on Larryville twice,” said Lawrence City Commissioner Sue Hack. “And decided I wasn’t going to go back. … I just felt it was hurtful to a lot of people. I had different things to read.”

Others found it valuable, however.

“I think it was very good for community discussion on many matters,” said Lawrence resident Richard Heckler, a frequent poster on the site. “I think it will be sorely missed, because you could pretty well say what you wanted. It was designed to be an open forum, and there was tolerance there.”

The forum has been hurt by posters who took advantage of that openness, contributor Larry Kipp said.

“It really went downhill when it started getting taken over by rather compulsive people who apparently need attention … to degrade the conversation down to the lowest common denominator,” Kipp said.

DuBois apparently agreed. Last year he imposed new rules designed to keep individual contributors from dominating the discussion. In recent weeks he said that any contributor who treated others disrespectfully risked losing privileges on the site.

Kipp said he hoped the Larryville archives would be saved as a record of Lawrence’s early Internet days.

“It ended up being a free-for-all, it ended up being a food fight,” Kipp said. “But I hate to see it go.”

Community discussions also occur on the Journal-World’s Reader Reaction board, at www.lawrence.com/forum/community_forum