Today I came across a post on one of the NYT blogs on how the blogger there, Marci Alboher, moderates comments on her blog – via Steve Rubel.
In the post Marci shares a few reasons why she doesn’t allow comments to go up:
1. It is too long (even though it might be well-written and make interesting points).
2. It is nasty, impolite or uses language that is unprintable in The New York Times.
3. It includes a a link that has a typo or is broken in some other way (again, even though it may be well-written and make interesting points).
4. It should have been sent as an e-mail since it is clearly addressed to me and does not appear to have been intended for other readers.
5. It is pandering to me (like visiting the blog to tell me that I’m brilliant and have my finger on the pulse of something) or blatantly self-promotional.
I’m fascinated by this list on a number of fronts.
- I think it’s great that Marci (and the NYT) has thought through which comments she’ll allow up on her blog. I suspect that many bloggers don’t have any kind of policy on comment moderation (formal or informal) and have not communicated to their readers what they accept or don’t accept. I think that such a policy would be helpful for both readers and bloggers.
- My personal opinion on comment policies is that what the blogger (or the blog owner) says goes. We all have different opinions, values and approaches but in the same way that I decide what I want to happen inside my home I decide that boundaries of behavior on my blog. While a few of the things that Marci said do make me raise my eyebrows (moderating comments based upon length even if they are well written and interesting for example) it’s her (and the NYT) prerogative to set the boundaries where she sets them.
- Having said that – I find it interesting to see where bloggers do draw the line. Perhaps it’s partly to do with writing a blog for the NYT who would have strong guidelines on such matters – but I get the feeling that Marci moderates comments a lot more tightly and in areas that most bloggers wouldn’t even consider moderating comments on. Most bloggers do have concerns of self promotion (particularly when it borders on spam) and many would edit based upon unacceptable language or personal attack but the idea of moderating based upon length or comments with typos in links goes to a place that I’ve not seen many bloggers go.
I don’t really want to create a discussion based around debating whether Marci’s approach is ‘right or wrong’ (I think it’s really up to her to make those decisions for her blog) but I would love to hear readers opinions and experiences is setting boundaries in their own blog’s comment sections.
- Do you have a comments policy on your blog (written or unwritten)?
- When do you moderate comments? What triggers you to moderate certain comments?
PS: My answers to these questions are in my comment policy. It’s a little dated (written in 2005) but it still largely fits with my approach.
I don’t moderate comments unless they are obvious spam OR has offensive language (cursing, etc.) since it is a family oriented blog.
I had to recently write and review a comment policy because of I was getting into conversations where it wasn’t about the topic, it was about me– or diminutive of those that hold my viewpoint.
There is definitely room for good discussion, but when it descends to talking about the person rather than the topic, it needs to go.
I don’t actually have a policy for comments. I guess I’m lucky in a sense, most of the comments I receive are short and to the point.
I hadn’t thought about a policy on moderating comments. I’m thinking that having one may cause some people to scream “censorship.” Do you think it would be wise to make the policy known to readers?
I only delete obvious spam comments and I deleted one comment from an online stalker. Maybe, when I’m further along in my blogging journey, I might consider other options. But right now, I get minimal comments so I pretty much let anything go. I probably would delete any kind of offensive comments too.
So far I’ve left everything up to Akismet and have yet to have a problem. I’m relatively new though.
Marci believes that you should not approve a comment if it is too long, has a typo, or an inappropriate word. But sometimes we get excellent comments that contribute a lot — they just happen to throw in one cuss word, misspell here and there, or go off on a tangent. Rather than dismissing those and not allowing from our other readers to benefit from their insight, we edit them before publishing (not sure if all blog software allows you to do this — ours does). I’ll remove/replace the cuss word, fix the typo if it is too disruptive, and maybe delete the part is relevant. I would not do any major edits or change the meaning, but if a comment is constructive minus a few tiny problems, don’t totally dismiss it. Fix it and post it.
Very interesting!
You gave me the impression that blog readers have to do the following to make sure that their comments will get published:
1. Leave lots of praises for the post or the blogger
2. Show no displeasure or disagreement
3. Must sound like an exemplary citizen
NOTE: I took a screenshot of this comment. I just might use it to prove something on my blog, if and when it is really necessary.
My blog has an extremely lively comment section. It’s my favorite thing about the blog. My only rule is that people have manners, but so far not a single soul has broken it.
I have a written comment policy on my blog, which states that I will remove any comments that contain personal attacks, unacceptable language or which are spam. It also ask people to try to stay on-topic, and gives the email address they can use to reach me directly, rather than leaving off-topic comments on the blog.
My thoughts on this are basically what you’ve said here, Darren: if I wouldn’t tolerate someone walking into my home and saying it to me, I won’t allow them to say it on my blog, either. As the comment policy states, constructive criticism is welcome: personal attacks and insults are deleted. I want the blog to have an atmosphere of friendly debate rather than aggression, but I do try to moderate as little as possible because I think often people just come across badly and don’t mean to cause offence.
As for Marci’s policy, I think it goes a lot further than most people would (I wouldn’t have time to moderate comments for so many different reasons!) but agree that it’s up to each blogger to decide what they’ll put up with.
Owning a sports blog – specifically, a sports team blog – leads to plenty of heated discussions. I have one pretty clear rule: You can’t insult other commenters.
I don’t care if you make fun of players, coaches, or even the writers, just other commenters are off limits. After expressing this via comments after the fact several times, I finally had to write down and adopt a formal comments policy. In there I put some other ground rules involving spammy links and excessive bad language, etc.
Some highlights of my comment policy – http://www.tom-hanna.org/?page_id=1471 –
1. No spam, not even borderline.
2. Keep links relevant and no “link signatures”
3. Be relevant
4. Use common sense and The Golden Rule
I have only taken down a few comments. I had one childish rant about what a terrible artist I am and I may have even considered leaving that up if it did not have a curse word in it.
At this point with only a hundred or so readers per day I do not see the need for a comments policy. I do get soft spam comments on occasion and for the most part I just ignore them.
Your own policy is very well written ( pandering:) )
The comments I receive are always respectful and constructive. It’s odd, considering I’m on, you know, THE INTERNET. But hey, I’m not complaining.
I rarely get over 10 comments on my article but I just recently got my Blog together for the long run.
As for a policy, I don’t have any. I don’t think I’ll delete any comment during my blogging “career”.
The only exception to that would be a really disrespectful comment on top of a popular article. It’s just common sense you know.
I agree with Rachel’s comment. Akismet has been very helpful, but I’ve also found that I’ve not approved comments by “keyword” commenters. You know those with names such as “hair salon” or “free widgets.”
Additionally, obvious empty flattery for a backlink is quickly becoming number one on my “do not approve” list.
My blog is young and I’m hungry for comments and I used to approve everything. That practice was quickly revised after the first few empty comments. I think it not only cheapens the blog but it opens the door for everyone else to repeat the unwanted behavior.
By the way, great post as usual (no, this is not empty flattery, it’s true appreciation).
My policy is unwritten and has evolved over time:
1. No strictly self-promotional comments. But even a few relevant words will suffice.
2. No long comments that mostly confuse the issues.
3. No excessive profanity.
4. No excessive meanness/nastiness.
5. No love notes or secret admirer comments. : )
I moderate comments that:
* are off-topic – this also includes support inquiries, people trying to contact me personally about something and other communications better handled via email or phone
* are inappropriate or profane
* are blatant self-promotion
* are not “from” a person – in other words, if someone submits a comment and use keywords as their “name,” I will either change the name to their actual name (if it’s obvious from their email address), or delete the comment (if I can’t discern their name). Conversations should happen between people, not keywords.
* include signatures – I remove the signature from the comment. While not everyone will abuse signatures, some inevitably will, and when you start drawing the line, you inevitably offend people. Not having signatures at all is simple and egalitarian.
(Lately, I also find myself apt to moderate comments that say nothing beyond “great post” or something to that effect. Vapid statements like that add nothing to the conversation, and can inhibit others from making valuable contributions. The social proof and warm/fuzzy feeling from having a lot of comments on a post aren’t worth it if those comments don’t say anything useful.)
I don’t really have a policy, I go through each comment before it’s approved and if I don’t like it it goes in the digital garbage.
My blog is less than a month old and only has a couple of comments at this point so I have little experience in this area so far. But I would say that, other than the obvious spammers and foul mouths, keeping things pretty open is the way to go. Most of the time, the commenter’s that are up to no good generally get shunned by the others and usually go away.
i have something that i call comment aspirations. they are guidelines that i do my best to adhere to myself, and are something that i can point to when i delete a comment.
while i find akismet helpful, i certainly still need to watch it; sometimes something slips through, and sometimes something gets marked “spam” that isn’t. (i search for certain keywords once a week or so in my akismet folder to try and find the ones that aren’t).
i’m going to install keywordluv soon; that will hopefully deal with some of the “gray” commenters – commenters who clearly comment for the google juice but still have something semi intelligent to say.
I don’t mind long comments. I do edit out excessive self-promotion (usually in the form of several links to the commenter’s own blog) and profanity.
I don’t have a policy per se. So far I’ve only received appropriate comments, but I wouldn’t hesitate to delete one that I considered spam or used profanity.
I don’t really have any rules, but I will delete any comments that are obviously spam or are purely abusive in nature.
The comments section is there for a reason — it’s so your visitors can give you feedback and also start interesting conversations with you and each other. It won’t be right to try to shape the discussion towards where you want it to go — if I get negative feedback I will accept that and talk about it rather than try to hide it.
If something is really offensive, then sure, remove it as it obviously won’t be adding any good value to anyone — however, I think comments should be moderated as little as possible to allow everyone to express their views freely.
I actually do have a Discussion policy but have kept it really general so I don’t put myself into a corner. I only delete if it is rudely self-promotional, trolling behavior or just downright nasty personal attack on myself or another commenter.
Those that show a pattern of starting off nice to only end up getting weird are flagged for moderation and I, more often than not, will email them asking them to consider what I find appropriate or not. Because sometimes they make good points but those points are completely overshadowed by inappropriate ad hominem or disgusting language.
BTW, I can’t remember ever leaving a comment here but I love this blog. Thank you for what you do.
I don’t have a written out comment policy on my blog, but now I’m thinking it might be a good idea.
I think if you are going to have really strict or unusual rules for commenting people should have a comment policy somewhere. Especially if you won’t approve comments that are long – how would a person be expected to know that? If they knew only shorter comments were acceptable I’m sure they would make it shorter then.
If someone leaves a decent comment, but they also include a link that seems possibly spammy – I just cut out the link.
I don’t approve of comments if they seem off topic for the post, or are more of a personal message to me – but then I email the person back instead.
NPR had a whole piece on this on On The Media. I was quoted in the Letters segment as saying that internet comments should be treated like letters to the editor to a print publication. The Village Voice would allow swearing in their letters, but the New York Times wouldn’t. How you moderate commenters should be reflective of how you moderate yourself.
We run an American real estate magazine online and had to implement a comment policy due to high traffic and the vulnerable position we were in without one: comment policy is half way down the page.
It’s sad that any of us even have to spell out what is and is not appropriate.
I go through and check all the different comments first. I do not approve any until I have read them myself. Unless they have already posted before than I trust them on their first comment being approved.
A lot of my articles have been very controversial and have touched a nerve with a lot of people. This has inspired some really nasty comments not only about my articles but about me personally — I’ve been called a lot of names I wouldn’t like to repeat!
That being said I do not decline comments unless they are clearly spam. At first I declined comments that were very mean towards me but I quickly got over it and realized that this is the internet and I thought it was important that people could say whatever they felt about my work. I don’t care if people are going to be mean because I don’t think the comments have too much influence on what people think about the piece since their impressions are already formed.
i think i could create policy one… but where i can find the nice template of comments policy… but thanks for your policy, its my new inspiration… :)
I have a fairly liberal comment policy. I allow anchored links, such as “Discount Widget Store” as long as the content of the comment is on topic to the post and is of reasonable length and the link isn’t to a bad neighborhood site. As a result, I get a lot of free, extra, keyword rich content for my blogs.
I believe… actually, no, it’s just a fact that it is totally the right of the blog owner to moderate comments how they see fit. At a blog I was formerly involved with, one guy decided to leave comments that were defamatory towards one of our writers on all of his posts. We took them down, of course. The next day he’d left a comment asking why “censorship” had occurred on “a public forum.”
Well, this attitude that comment sections are publicly owned, free-speech forums is just stupid and comes out of ignorance. Blogs are privately owned and comments are just a way of adding value to the main focus, the post, and enabling some conversation. The owner is well within his or her rights to delete a comment simply because he or she doesn’t like it.
That said, while I respect Marci’s right to moderate as she wishes, moderating comments simply because they are long is possibly one of the most stupid ideas regarding comment moderation that I’ve heard in a very, very long time. Let’s just go and kill off that one last shred of intellectualism left on the internet by killing long, considered, insightful comments, shall we?
Thanks for the good thoughts, Darren!
My blog is my castle. I am lord and master of that domain. As such, I don’t have a written policy. One reason for that is I reserve the right to be (perceived as) inconsistent in what I will allow.
But the same applies to my real home: Friends and family might get away with more than strangers. But no salesmen (spammers).
So far, Akismet and Bad Behavior take care of me. I currently review the first comment by any commenter; however, I’m strongly considering leaving out that moderation step (just as you’ve done here).
(The unwritten rules include “no personal attacks, no racism, no gratuitous profanity.” I apply my internal definition of “gratuitous” but it’s fairly strict.)
Oh, to be the blogger who gets enough traffic that a comment policy is necessary. :)
Spam Karma 2 weeds out the crap in my blogs. Anything else that gets posted, I get an email telling me so. I haven’t had any problems.
What I do wish I could do something about is the people who repost my stuff verbatim on their own scraper blogs. If they take it from my RSS feed, AntiLeech deals with them, but if they just copy and paste I don’t know what to do.
I am pretty free with my comments but there are a few things that irritate me to enough to moderate the. If they use keywords instead of a name I will either boot the comment or change the name. If it’s obviously just there to promote a link. Responses such as nice post also usually get the boot.
I am actually trying a new plugin that allows me to set a minimum word length (set to 15 at the moment) to encourage longer better comments.
I’m taking on the webmaster/blog admin duties for my day job. The owners are still in the 1970s in terms of technology. A blog was something of a sell. I have to moderate comments for their blog. If just because of comment spam, I would always choose to
anyway. Yes, there is a comment policy, which I believe is really the way to go.
If it’s a well written comment with a link stuck in, I’ll usually remove the link and allow the comment text. I also remove comments that are ‘patronizing’ and comments that are ridiculously short. (like a smiley only) I sometimes get comments from a few people in particular that are just suggestions or addressed as emails, like Marci said. I remove the ones that are to focused on talking to me personally.
The more comments the better, in my opinion, so the only time I’ll remove a comment is if it’s spam, or an attack on anyone (me, other commenters, other blog(gers).
I have it set up that the first time someone comments it has to be moderated just to make sure it’s not a spammer or troll. After that if you’ve been approved you can comment freely.
I’ve never even thought about writing it up. Maybe for my next project.
well, its look like a professional blogger, who have policy like that. but i think i’ll start to do it, thanks, it’s make me more pro i though :)
I let pretty much everything slide so long as it isn’t outright spam or a personal attack against me or another commenter or some curse filled tirade. Everything else is fair game.
I have never moderated comments on any of my blogs, I have not had any problem of spam or from unruly bloggers. I did have some spam on wordpress only a few and not enough to moderate comments. Great post Darren I love reading ProBlogger you always find something interesting to post about.
Comment for spam will no way be allowed. I believe most of us will agree on this basic rule.
Negative comments will still be accepted, since human make mistakes [I’m human – so I make mistakes]. I don’t really mind to show my mistakes.
no personal attacks, no racism comments.
I don’t have a written policy but I don’t have many cases of unwanted comments. I usually delete those comments that systematically offend me or other commenters. I encourage discussions around the topic of the post but I don’t allow comments on people’s mentality.
Usually, before I delete a comment or block a commenter I post a comment with my reasons to do that.
I think comments are invaluable in getting a dialogue with your readers. I believe that it has a positive effect on readership levels. Of course it is the bloggers perogative if they want to delete unhelpful comments.
I correct mispelling and misprint. I delete spam comment and also promotional comments. I also delete unuseful comments like “Good post!” and so on, sent to get a backlink only. This is my comments’ policy.
I get a lot of trackback spam, inane comments, and garbage, so I silently remove them all. I occasionally block a blog that is spamming mine with an IP ban. Seems effective.
I don’t have a public comment policy. Obviously I get rid of the spam (mostly Askimet gets this though). I have also not let the odd one through that was blatant self-promotion, or business promotion. Otherwise, my blog doesn’t warrant a comment policy – yet.
“2. It is nasty, impolite or uses language that is unprintable in The New York Times.”
Imagine that, the same warmongering New York Times that is soaked in the blood of innocent Iraqis from an illegal military invasion that the Times beat the war drums for, has these dear tender little Emily Post-like manners. How gentile, how sweet, and how sad over 90,000 dead Iraqis won’t be able to share this lovely moment. Sort of like Hitler reminding you to keep your elbows off the table, thanks NYT!
i let the akismet pluggin do filter the spam and approve evertything else.
I moderate all comments to my blog – a blog of good, clean humor. Here’s what I tell potential commenters right before they leave a comment:
All comments are moderated by the owner of this blog to keep things “family-friendly.”
I’ve been at this thing long enough to know that no matter how good your spam filter is, some pretty nasty spam can slip through. I also do not allow what are obviously trackbacks trying to get themselves some traffic.
I want genuine comments that add to what I’ve posted.