That isn't one of the Super Mario Brothers on the other end of the Webcam. It's a human being.

Sometimes when they're online, people lose sight of that. That's the stark truth behind the death of 19-year-old Abraham Biggs Jr.

The Florida college student committed suicide earlier last month by overdosing on anti-depressant pills in front of a live Web audience. Such an act would be tragic enough on its own. What made it doubly horrifying was the behavior of the viewers and discussion board moderators.

Authorities were eventually notified, but not until it was too late. Viewers were more interested in posting comments goading him into going ahead with it.

It would be difficult to prosecute Web users for pushing Biggs toward killing himself, according to legal experts quoted in media reports. He had reportedly threatened to do this before, and some chatters on the Web sites Justin.tv and BodyBuilding.com wrote that they assumed he was simply crying wolf again.

Others indicated the moderators who were entrusted to police those boards blew off viewers' pleas for help. That's exactly the attitude that gives birth to the cold, dark corners of the Internet.

People likely wouldn't have the gall to act that way face-to-face, especially if they knew the man personally. But the Internet has become something of a fantasy land where some users believe everything exists purely for their entertainment. They forget real, flawed people are behind the anonymous dialogue.

Anyone with a keyboard, mouse and modem has a responsibility to exercise good judgment when posting. It doesn't take a trained psychologist to recognize that a troubled person lies behind repeated threats of suicide. Computer users should tread lightly in those cases and, when they spot problems, alert someone.

Those whose task it is to monitor such sites have a responsibility to keep their guards up. It's unrealistic to expect them to shepherd every hurting user to the help he or she needs, but they need to realize words can be high-caliber weapons to someone on the edge. When alerted to troubling chatter, they might have to take away those users' audience by banning them from the site.

It's tragic that a loss of life has to remind us of our occasional inhumanity. It would be great if this had all happened in the virtual world of "Second Life." Biggs only got one.