We have a web log or “blog.” You’re reading it right now. But unlike many blogs, we don’t accept reader comments. We decided we didn’t want to deal with them. We figured we’d opt out and simply post articles without the fanfare. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear what you have to say — you’re certainly welcome to contact us. We like comments, in fact. On other sites under our management, those who comment on our blogs often provide insights that may be otherwise overlooked. It’s a subjective matter. If you have a blog, you’ll have to decide for yourself. In this article we’ll offer some experienced-based insights — the pros and cons if you will — so that you may be enlightened.
Some Intelligent Readers
Emphasis should be placed on the word “some” in the heading. As was mentioned in the intro, those who comment on blogs often provide insights,
but with that there is also truth in the counter-statement. Some readers will not provide insightful comments. Some can border on idiotic (not to be confused with comment spam) We’ve found that most reader comments, if your content is good, will enhance the experience for all readers by, again, offering insights that may be otherwise overlooked. A lot depends on the seriousness of the subject matter, your comment restrictions, and your audience.
Sense of Community
A blog with quality content, regardless of the number of authors, can attract quite the crowd. Well-written and insightful posts can ignite a flurry of comment-based conversation. It has to be good to rise above the sea of blogs that are never read, but it can be done. Once the art of content is mastered, the commentary can come alive. Your readers’ names are recognized as they add themselves to your blog on numerous occasions. It’s nice, near friendships are forged, personalities waft from the screen. Accepting comments doesn’t guarantee any of this, but it makes it possible. A web site can have readers, subscribers, even fans, but the anonymity with never give rise to community.
Comment Spam
Some comments are idiotic, meaning the person writes something too far off-topic or, worse, the comment is inaccurate. Some comments can be malicious or “flaming” as is said, disrespecting the author or another commenter. (Those should be deleted but we’ll get to that.) Some comments are idiotic in that they are shallow flattery and may not even make sense. For example:
Your guestbook have really teached me a lot. I am bookmarked it for future and I tell all my friends they like it to. — Discount Pet Insurance
This is spam. The name would be a link to some site. The comment may be unintelligible (as purposely shown in the quote). It is not posted by a person in most cases. Rather it is posted by software. Don’t respond to it, you will look foolish. Hopefully you have some comment restrictions (see next) in place so nobody has to see this comment but you. You do not want to allow this type of comment to be posted. If it is, then you’ll need some comment moderation functionality to get rid of it.
Be forewarned, comment spam, if not properly mitigated, can cause bloggers to collapse in frustration, weep like babies, and give up blogging forever. It doesn’t have to be that way if you are working with the right blogging platform.
Comment Restrictions
You must have comment restrictions in place. We have found two in particular very useful as they will prevent most spam comments from being posted in the first place. They are:
- First-time commenters will have their comment moderated. Period.
- If the comment contains a link it will be moderated — keeps approved commenters from becoming dark agents of spam.
If you have a blog these two rules will keep most spam comments from being posted in the first place as was said, and you’ll likely be happy with that for up to a year if you stay under the social radar. If you rise up in the so-called blogosphere or worldwide community of blogs, or if you’re at it long enough, spam posting robots (software) will find you and post spam comments.
Comment Moderation
As first-time or non-approved commenters, robot-generated spam comments won’t be posted because of these restrictions, but you will still have to moderate them (deleting them or marking them as spam with your publishing platform). This can quickly become a huge burden, especially if you have lots of legitimate comments mixed in. At some point you need to take further action or you will become one of the fallen bloggers. But more on that next. First we need to look at gray area comments, or those off topic.
Off topic comments usually get off topic due to a community discussion effect. We suggest letting these live. If there is a comment by someone you’ve never approved before, they provide some strange name — real names are best, followed by site/business names — and if the comment is off on some uncalled-for tangent, we’d suggest deferring it for a bit, then deleting it. Human-generated spam comments (on topic but commercially leading) and malicious comments should be deleted swiftly. Spam comments in particular should be so marked provided your blog supports this. We use WordPress and it offers the moderator these actions:
- Approve
- Okays the comment and approves the commenter for future postings.
- Mark as spam
- Deletes the comment but also marks the user as a spammer. This isn’t highly effective due to spammer technologies.
- Delete
- Deletes the comment only — no other action is performed.
- Defer (default)
- If undecided while moderating other comments, this allows you to skip the comment so you can deal with it later.
Note: In WordPress there are checkboxes allowing you to perform global actions.
Before you go delete crazy, please consider free speech. You should delete or deny comments that are offensive, malicious, spammy, or grossly and unexpectedly off-topic. You shouldn’t delete comments that provide an opposing viewpoint. Even where the commenter is being quite blunt. Their way may not be appreciated, but their views should be respected. You’re always welcome to provide a counterpoint or you may try clarifying your position, but deleting them, while always at your discretion, should probably be avoided in most cases.
Further Action
Once you’re found by spam-generating robots the number of comments in your moderation queue can be utterly preposterous. Any given day can generate hundreds or thousands once you’ve made the big time. You will need other controls if you want to retain your sanity.
On Mike’s blog he installed a “plugin” called Bad Behavior. This software detects spam robots and denies their access to the blog altogether. It’s really quite effective. It can, however, blacklist those which shouldn’t be, PayPal Instant Notification, for example (there is a file that is edited slightly to counter this). Bad Behavior may also impede access to some site as we learned from Department of Justice employees who use the Opera browser. But we do find the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
In time, even Bad Behavior fails to the extent that requires even further action. Mike installed Akismet on his blog. It didn’t work out well though because Akismet holds spam comments in a queue so it ended up being more of the same. And since legitimate comments would also be caught sometimes, the self-bailing queue still required inspection. Akismet is better suited as a tool for small to mid-level bloggers who do not use other controls. For higher profile bloggers even more help is needed. Akismet should be used in concert with software like Bad Behavior whenever possible.
Mike’s blog is pretty popular. Even though he doesn’t generate huge amounts of commentary (average of 14 comments per post), his blog is highly ranked and very well indexed. He outgrew comment restrictions, Bad Behavior, and Akismet. Mike ended up adding Mike Jolley’s WP Comment Spam Stopper. It’s derived from Mike’s own contact form script and some of the technology it employs. This has proven to be exceptionally effective.
You Decide
There is nothing difficult about installing the aforementioned tools, it’s just getting to the point when you realize you need them that can be painful; the day you get fed up. Some bloggers accept comments, some do not. Some used to accept comments then stopped. Others never did then started up. Using WordPress you can generally accept comments but turn them off for individual posts, you may also generally keep comments closed but turn them on for individual posts, or you can do what we did here and remove all traces, though you may want to hire a professional for that task.
In any case, you can test the waters for a year or two, see how it goes, putting up with a bit of spam in your moderation queue, and perhaps a bad apple or two, then go from there, charting a course based on your own experiences.