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I enjoy adding comments on other blogs. If you’re a blogger, you might relate.
I read dozens of blogs every day, and make it a point to visit many new ones. When inspired by content either in the post or sometimes from an earlier comment, I add my own two cents. I also enjoy visiting blogs of other people when they comment on blogs.
But I’m noticing an increasing number of bloggers who do the following:
- You require me to register as a prerequisite to leaving a comment.
- You prevent me from receiving follow-up comments by email.
- You moderate comments.
First, requisite blog registration tells me you fear authenticity. Unless if it’s a group blog that has registration for a reason, I rarely commit. I can’t think of a single reason why a personal blog would need registered commenters, unless you intend to send me emails.
Second, not enabling comment subscription tells me you fear sustainability. If you look below this post, there is an optional check box to receive emails of follow-up comments. Many blogs have this feature; or if not by email, at least by RSS. I realize it’s YOUR blog and you can do what you want, but if you thank me in a comment or someone else asks me to clarify something and I’m not subscribed to that thread, I never see it. If I don’t see it, I can’t respond.
Third, comment moderation tells me you fear lack of control. Or is it a spam issue and you are trying to prevent comments that smell of solicitation, sex, and scams? If the latter, Blogger and WordPress (and presumedly other out-of-the-box blog solutions) have built-in or plugin/widget spam trappers. If the former, I must ask: Why moderate?
Thoughts?
About 18 months after writing the above, I implemented blog comment moderation here — albeit only for the first comment someone makes. This is reflected in the comment policy, a document all bloggers ought to use and tweak for their own purposes.
About Ari Herzog
We moderate because of Spam issues. Do you have a plugin you recommend the best to get rid of this issue? If so then I agree with you that bloggers shouldn’t have to moderate.
Good points (although I’ll admit to being guilty of #2 and #3!)
The reason I don’t offer comment reply notifications is that at times it can seem like just another RSS feed or subscription for someone to sign up to. I don’t want anyone to feel like they are experiencing RSS or email overkill. Maybe it’s worth another look.
I use Akismet on my blogs and it’s never failed me yet. However, I will always moderate the first comment and then authorize your others automatically – that usually gives me a good idea who’s spamming and who has something genuine to say.
#1 is my pet peeve on all blogs, though. Making me sign up just to share a view on something? Sorry, to me that’s not the basis of a blog. To me, a blog is an interactive tool between author and reader – taking away that option by demanding sign up just means you have a static site as opposed to a weblog. In my opinion.
Danny Brown´s last blog post..5 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Twitter Relationship
I agree with the whole register thing. It does get annoying to have to register to comment on a blog. I do make a few exceptions to that. Usually, I will register if I’m sure I will continue to return to the blog to read articles and comment fairly often or if I would actually like to receive email from that particular site.
I think a lot of blog owners may be unaware of spam grabbers they can utilize on their site.
Mary Wehrle´s last blog post..The Morning of My Dreams Has Finally Come
The only one I’m guilty of is not having the little “Notify” button at the bottom of the comment box. How in WP do I get this to appear? I have looked at all the features in the dashboard and can’t find it….Thanks for these great tips!
Tonya Pruitt´s last blog post..Summary of Adding Value
Thanks for the tips! I just took a look at my blog to make sure that we have the right standards in place. We do have to approve all comments but its only because of the amount of spam we get. I think the most important thing is the registration factor. I agree that if you have to sign in to comment, it is more likely that people will leave the site. I have not left comments on many blogs because I didn’t feel like signing up for another site.
I moderate all comments because my host blocks outbound traffic so I can’t use Akismet. That’s not to say you can’t disagree or call me names but commenting for the sake of a link is definitely not allowed. I’d much rather moderate than use a CAPTCHA.
I agree about registering being a pain but I didn’t realise that comment subscriptions were such an important feature. I’ll have to implement that.
andymurd´s last blog post..Programming Collective Intelligence
I’m guilty of #2. I think it’s only that I’m relatively new to blogging. I’m just getting acquainted with the bells and whistles of this new medium. I’m older than a lot of bloggers, and new to the internet. So any suggestion are helpful.
As for the control issue with #3–I completely agree you. I have a trash can I can dump truly offensive comments into. Occasionally someone unpleasant tries to take over a comment’s thread. I will let it go on for a little while, but will eventually request that we stay on topic and keep it brief. Maybe suggest the the blogger in question might want to post this particular rant at his or her own site.
Thanks for the tips! I totally agree with you about registration. That’s the fastest way to make me leave without a comment. Very few comments are important enough for me to jump through that hoop!
I set up comment moderation for spam reasons, but it only moderates the first time you post one. Once you’ve had one approved comment, all the rest will be approved automatically. I do have Akismet, and thank goodness for that! Otherwise processing spam could be a job in itself. (-:
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Just wanted to tell you your Thesis looks great; super clean.
Writer Dad´s last blog post..Bright Ideas
Hi Ari,
I have to say that as much as I respect your opinions on nearly all things online, I disagree with the last part of your latest post.
There’s a big difference between moderating a comment and being afraid of losing control.
I moderate comments to make sure spam doesn’t get past the automatic filter. The truth is, I catch a lot of spam.
Regardless of whether I moderated comments though, I could still delete a comment that I didn’t like.
But that seems to defeat the whole idea of blogging in the first place.
-Josh
Josh Fialkoff´s last blog post..A How-to Guide to Migrating a Website to WordPress
Hi Ari,
I recently added subscribe to comments to my blog. Is there anyway to tell who is actually subscribed though? I don’t mind being moderated so much as being required to register.
Steve C @ MyWifeQuitHerJob.com´s last blog post..When Getting Good Grades And Entrepreneurship Don’t Mix
I find it amusing that out of the above comments, nobody is supporting blog registrations, everyone is supporting the idea behind comment notifications, and there’s a split of opinion with moderation.
I use WordPress.org (which is the self-hosted version) and I think the free WordPress.com version offers (most of) the same plugins.
My suggestions:
1. For anti-spam, use Akismet at a minimum. This comes pre-loaded with WP; you merely need to follow the instructions to sign up for an Akismet key. If you can’t find the plugin, see http://akismet.com. There are many other anti-spam plugins; I tried Bad Behavior for a few weeks, but nixed it the other day as it was restricting some servers. I may add Spam Karma 2 as well.
2. For enabling readers to subscribe to comments, I use http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/ – and there are other options if you google for them. You can alternatively/additionally use code or plugins to enable RSS feeds for comments.
3. For questions about how your latest posts appear under your comments, I use CommentLuv from http://www.commentluv.com – you need to sign up for an account and then follow the directions to activate it on your blog. If you scroll to the very bottom of this page, you’ll see it in tiny print. Note I assume you want the link, so I check the box automatically.
Oh, on that note, I recognize Akismet prevents spam from coming into comments, so I remove a “nofollow” attribute that WordPress sets up by default.
What I mean by removing “nofollow” is Google can only index links if it is allowed to follow them; WP assumes links are spam so prevents indexing. I’ve turned that off via http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-tweaks/dofollow/ so you can be happy that any link from your name, from your comment field, or from CommentLuv, is being indexed back to you; which relates to the importance of my prior advice about contextual link text and blog titles. Make sense?
Craig and Josh: Using Akismet’s settings to treat any comments with 2 or more links as spam (CommentLuv excepted as that’s not “in” the comment box), I’ve only seen 1-2 out of every 100 comments fail the filter. In that case, I manually delete the spam from the thread. Thus, there’s no reason to moderate to prevent spam.
And Steve, yes, there is a way to view those who subscribe. It’s in your dashboard (Settings->Subscribe to Comments).
@Ari I’m guilty on point 3 for all my sites. I get soooooo much spam that is not trapped by Akismet nor my .htaccess bans. If I were to let it through readers would be seeing all this filth from Russia (multiple IPs, nasty links, and no simple way to filter), so I leave moderation on. If there’s a near-perfect solution, let me know.
Ari – I have nofollow turned off so I want to be careful about the links that are left in the comments. The first time someone comments I moderate it. After that the comment is displayed immediately unless it contains a link. Except for when I’m asleep I moderate them quickly.
I will rarely register to leave a comment.
People may simply not know about the subscribe to comments plugin. I didn’t use it at first and only added it when readers requested it.
@Steve C – Under Manage > Subscriptions you can see a list of who is subscribed to comments on you site.
Kim Woodbridge´s last blog post..(Anti) Social-Lists 11/9/08
The “subscribe to comments” feature is really important, I agree, but recently there was a problem that did affect German bloggers (iI don’t know about the law in other countries):
You could enter someone else’s email so that person (who had not asked for it) would get notices by the blog. Now you will say that that is not too bad, but in German law spamming (as in sending commercial email without the receiver wanting them) is illegal. Blogs that have ads on them are considered commercial in that respect so there were some German blogs getting sued for that behavior.
Just to clear things up why some people might not have the feature enabled: As long as it doesn’t do double opt-in it can be used for spaming and might get you in legal trouble.
tante´s last blog post..Systrays
Thanks for the plugin suggestions.
I agree with some of your points, however, some people have a legitimate reason for moderating comments. I was spending so much time disapproving spam comments that it turned out to be faster for me to just have each person’s first comment go into moderation. Spam is annoying and I think having comments open really encourages spammers. Not all spam has a link in it; many spammers have figured out that trick and now just write out the URL to visit.
Hm, I see you require an email address, yet complain about blogs that require registration because you’re worried they’ll send you email. Once someone has your email address, they can send you email; it doesn’t matter if you registered or not.
Wesley´s last blog post..Cinderella
I have always had post and comment subscription by RSS. I think I added email for you (I tend to avoid email subscriptions myself – my inbox is already so full). I also moderate the first comment anyone leaves but after that they are good to go.
Leslie Poston´s last blog post..Could Becoming Social-Media Savvy Really Help the GOP?
David: I’m curious why spam is not being caught on your end. Akismet does it for me; I block comments that have 2 links. There’s an area in the plugin’s settings to manually enter words to blacklist. Maybe you should try that for common words?
Kim: Thanks for sharing your advice!
Tante: I didn’t know about that German anti-spam law. Interesting. Thanks!
Craig: You’re welcome.
Wesley: Yes, I require email addresses in comments. That’s for two reasons: One, so you can additionally opt-in to email notifications; and two, so I can optionally email you directly about my subsequent comment (which I will do once I conclude this reply). If you prefer, you can fake your email address or not include it, but that goes back to transparency. Why be anonymous?
Leslie: Yeah, I know some people prefer RSS comments over email comments. But a lot of my current and future clients don’t know what RSS is, but they do know email. Sometimes, they don’t want to learn new things. Sometimes, they want email and can filter it into folders/labels.
It’s Russian spam.
I’m not complaining that you require an email address, but if you’re willing to give your email address to sites anyway, your point about not liking registration because it allows sites to send you emails is invalid.
This giving private info away has perhaps come to a head this week in the twitterank debacle.
http://www.sciencetext.com/twitterank-phishing-scam.html
So, you thought you were immune to phish, did you? Even if this weren’t a scam, there were thousands who took the bait.
Fair enough, Wesley. Perhaps I’m selfish but I’d rather choose to comment on a blog on the same page after reading it, and not be forced to go through an extra step of registration (and sometimes checking my email inbox for a confirmation).
That’s a legitimate reason to not like registration, but in the post you said that you didn’t like that it allowed sites to send you emails, which could be a legitimate reason too, except that you require people to enter their email address to comment on your site.
Wesley´s last blog post..What is the deal with this?
Ari,
I saw your link on Valeria’s blog and realized I haven’t visited enough. These are three great tips, though comment moderation doesn’t bother me much.
My professional blog doesn’t have comment moderation, but we maintain several that do. In one case, it’s a combination of spam and purpose:
The blog was nothing more than an experimental side project, developed to highlight business giving practices of a variety of businesses. As such, the spirit of the blog was strictly positive, never leaning toward controversy. Of course, some businesses attract negative comments anyway. It was so distracting from the purpose, we had to moderate it.
For most clients, we advise them not to moderate. Authors actively participating in the comments tends to reduce spam (you can always delete those, which sends a message not to bother). They also can guide comment sections, which is what I keep reminding journalists to help them prevent what can be easily described as anarchy.
However, some companies need the additional security to get over the initial fear. (I don’t believe in fear-based decisions, but many do.) Over time, they’ll see that based on the surprisingly few comments that get disallowed, moderation isn’t really warranted. At least, I hope so.
All my best,
Rich
Richard Becker´s last blog post..Keeping Clients Engaged: On Blogs
Twitter Comment
@ariherzog – love that post – adding it to my bookmark rather than rewrite folder [link to post] #blogchat
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Hello! I moderate all comments at my blog. Granted, I don’t get a lot of comments, but it’s better that way. If I want traffic, I can find lots of things to say on Twitter.
I began moderating when some scoundrel I “met” on another blog started following me around. Finally, I decided the only way to control his inappropriate posts on MY blog was to moderate. I have told him not to visit but he keeps coming. Perhaps he will stop someday. Meanwhile, I try not to visit his blog at all. If I do, and post a comment, it rarely is taken in the way that I expected. He has a coterie of people who just like going there.
I don’t get a lot of spam. I’m enjoying blogging since August 2008. Prior to that, I was a member of a political forum where the discussions were hot and heavy. Last summer, I was “banned” by moderators — I like to say we had “irreconcilable differences.” There were people who truly believed I was not who I said I was. Many of us now contribute to a small but kindly website. You can see me as Radio_Lady at http://www.oldelmtree.com
Cordially,
Ellen Kimball
Portland, OR
Ellen Kimball´s last blog post..Daughters and Dads — we’ve seen it all!
Typepad Pro provides the best spam filter ever. So I don’t moderate comments to control spam. Typepad does it for me. I moderate comments because there are many weirdos out there, unfortunately. I decided not to hide behind my monitor, therefore moderating comments is a good way to protect myself against some sick people online. Unfortunately, there are a lot. On the other hand, I do hate having to register in order to leave a comment or having to go through word verification !
i’m kind of new at this and was wondering if anyone has any helpful suggestions on how to improve this blog of mine. also any comments about the blog itself would be much appreciated too.