Comment Moderation – What is the Smart Policy?
Comment Moderation is an important part in blogger’s life. If you are a blogger like me, you get tons of comments on your blog, and you get to pick which one goes up and which ones does not. Well I have developed a policy for my comments, and I am going to share some of the possible policies which bloggers can use. I will let you decide which comment policy is smart.
Why Develop a Comment Policy?
Since blog comments is something that you judge often, Making a policy or a criteria is the best way to treat each comment equally and fairly. Aside from that reason, having a policy or a criteria speeds up your process of going through the comments.
1. Spam is not the Way
Believe me when I say this, I have taken enough measures to make sure that all spam gets caught. I will delete spam and I will not tolerate it. I will ban your IP if need be. I have written an article about 9 Tips and Tools to Fight Spam in WordPress. Sometimes you might get lucky and your spam comment might slip away, but believe me that I will get it. I have some nice users that report me if something is fishy out there.
2. Irrelevant linkings is NOT Allowed
I have no problem with you linking in the comments as long as it is a useful link. If you think you can write a comment and leave a link to Credit Card Debt Free, then you are wrong. Your comment will go straight to spam and will not show on the web.
3. Self Promotion
If your comment is solely for self promotion then your comment will not be allowed. I have had comments on my postts where people want me to add their link in my post, and they add the comment. When I check their link, it is not worth it for my audience to see it.
4. Too Personal
If your comment is something that is specifically directed to me, and not related to the post. Meaning that you should have sent me an email instead of commenting. It will not appear. If I find time, I do reply to these people using the email they put in the comment box, but I still would not let these comment appear for public to see.
5. I encourage Links
I encourage good comments. If it is necessary for you to add a link which might be useful to my post, then surely do so. I will also add it in the post text if I really like your link. So the point is don’t get me wrong. I just don’t like irrelevant links.
6. I do not allow Signature Links
I do not allow Signature Links. I know there is an option in the comment form that says Website. If you want someone to see your website then use that url. I don’t think you should add a signature in the comment. I will edit the comment and remove the signature, and if you don’t stop, then your comment will not show period.
7. Bad Name Choice
If your name is like Buy Viagra or something else really spammy, no matter how useful your comment is, it will go into spam. Don’t use these spammy names. Instead just use your real name if you want to add something useful.
Although some comments requires special attention, this is the general moderation policy that I follow. Did I miss anything? If I did let me know by adding it in the comments.
Hey, I am Syed Balkhi, The guy who is behind Balkhis Inc. I entered the industry back in 2002 not knowing a single thing. I barely spoke English at that time. In the past six years, my language barrier has been eliminated. Aside from English, now I also speak html, and php. Along with the languages I have also managed to master a few arts. Art of web-designing started when I first entered. Messing around with photoshop, I learned how to create my first web design. Now I founded a web designing firm Uzzz Productions. After running numerous amount of websites in various niche, I have mastered the art of web-development. Now I am compiling a resource of what I already know, and what I am learning on this blog. This resource is to help me if I ever need a guide to look back to, and it is help my fellow webmasters.
I dont see a problem with any of your commenting terms. A lot of bloggers these days are posting their terms about what is and what is`nt allowed when postng a comment.
One of my personal favourites is the length of a comment as you see so many blogs with simple replies such as `nice post` etc, etc. If your going to comment at least provide a decent reply.
Syed, I think your comment policy is fine, the only thing I would suggest is to perhaps have a link near the comment section that says “Comment Policy” that way… readers who are potentially thinking of doing “bad things” can just read it… and know their rights, etc.
Other than that… the only thing I would do differently…. is to allow comments to be on auto accept, after the first 3 comments are approved, that’s how I do it on my other blog, to take some of the load off me, but perhaps you have had trouble with it in the past?
Till then,
Jean
I agree with every point and have nothing to add,every blogger has the right to delete or not to delete the comment,but some moderators are too strict that you think their commentators must be professors,experts,correspondents at least,no simple opinions and everything looks unnatural and one loses interest for commenting.
I liked these policies. Recently I am dealing with a lot of spam comments on my blog. I am blocking the IPs, but same comments appear with different IPs. Do you know a way to deal with this issue?
Reasonable points. I can’t imagine anything more I’d add to the policy.
I’m glad you sorted out this things because it was getting hard for me to leave comments on your posts.
Yes I know Alex .. It was a trouble now I see your comments under pending which is a good thing rather than in spam..
I hate spam I think that people that spam will have a nice spot in hell for those people that will have to click through a non stop amount of spam.
By now I am quite familiar with your comment policy and I follow them any way in my blog too. These are valid for all comments and I am glad that you have iterated something that I have known about your blog for quite some time now.
I know .. I loved your emails that you send me lol. You were one of the first to have troubles who contacted me.
Comment moderation is hard part of bloggers life, and making a smart policy is surely a little helper to have guide and rules while moderating comments. Comments are blog content also, and therefore they really need to have quality.
Would “make money online” as a name be acceptable? It isn’t about buying pills or being debt free. I don’t exactly know your meaning of bad name choice since that is too broad.
-Kai Lo
It is a bit spammy. You got lucky that I went through the spam. Mostly I don’t look at the spam because I have too much. If your comments doesn’t show up in the future, you know the reason why. I suggest you change it to Kai Lo or something like that rather than this keyword.