Comments on your blog

[gmw]

I've been finding my way around WordPress (17 years on the 'net and I've never had a blog), and it set me to wondering how authors here deal with comments on their blog posts.

I presume it is normal to set-up to require a post to be approved before it shows to all. (I am guessing the only exception to this is if you receive so many comments as to make it impractical.)

So there you are looking at your list of comments to approve. There will be easy ones: the glowing positives can stay, they spam can go. But what about the negatives, or the doubtfuls? Do any of you have some sort of policy you follow with regard to these? Has it even been much of an issue?

This page seems to offer sound advice: The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Dealing with Blog Trolls and Stupid Comments. Do you agree? Has deleting negatives comments caused you any problems?

[MartinC]

Originally Posted by gmw

So there you are looking at your list of comments to approve. There will be easy ones: the glowing positives can stay, they spam can go. But what about the negatives, or the doubtfuls? Do any of you have some sort of policy you follow with regard to these? Has it even been much of an issue?

For what it's worth, on my blogs (also Wordpress) the discussion settings are: an administrator must always approve the comment and comment author must always fill out name and email. Obvious spam and troll get deleted - though the Wordpress spam detector seems to work pretty well. Everything else I approve, including negative comments.

On the other hand, I only reply to comments if they are asking specific questions. It's a mistake to try to justify yourself, I think. Why should you?

Your guide seems to be talking about a business blog, where the priorities may be a little different, but if I review a book and the author's mum thinks I have been unfair she's entitled to have her say.

To be honest, it's never been much of an issue - I wish I had a list of comments to approve!

[gmw]

Originally Posted by MartinC

[...]To be honest, it's never been much of an issue - I wish I had a list of comments to approve!

Yes, I do understand that it's not likely to be a problem for some time. But I do like to be prepared , and a person can always hope that too much traffic could become a problem. (Like hoping to have to deal with all those problems that come with having too much money - I'm told they exist, though I can't say I've experienced them yet. ).

Thanks for your comments. You say that you approve even negative comments, how far do you think you would take that? I can understand accepting mild and/or well-expressed negative, but I've seen some pretty nasty stuff appear on some blogs. I can't really imagine wanting to leave such stuff on view, if for no other reason than it stirs up arguments ... OTOH I guess controversy can lead to more visitors (ETA: thinking here of the "Authors behaving badly" thread).

[Penforhire]

On my blogs I let anyone post comments but I do cull the spam, mostly link-backs to someone's products or commercial website.

It isn't that hard to do. I'm up to 280K hits on my most popular blog. I let negative comments stand but I pull my sheriff's badge out and cut off trolling when it gets out of hand. These are my blogs, not public soapboxes.

[Stephen B]

I just set up my wordpress blog a few days ago, so no comments yet. Since it's your blog, I don't see why you would want to put up with destructive or abusive comments. They can leave them on Amazon and there's nothing you can do about it.

[VydorScope]

I have several blogs. I use a spam tool called Akismet for WordPress that seems to do a killer job at culling spam write out.

I tend to let all respectful comments stand. I also try to avoid being defensive at all, it never ends well, IMO.

[ME2012]

Hi,

Of course it is a good idea to set up the spam filters. Believe me you will get many once the search engines find you.

Delete straight out negative comments - oh yeah.

I suggest to be open to the comments that may not be glowing but offer constructive advice. It may be hard on the ego but something could be learned as a result.

Though, I hate it when the writer/blogger argues back. Feels like a waste of my time as a reader.

[Elfwreck]

If you remove negatives or iffy comments, the only people who'll want to read are those who whole-heartedly agree with you. You'll drive away any audience who has questions or doubts.

I delete spam--link-filled comments that don't show any sign of having read the post. I screen actively hateful comments, and anything that reveals private data. Other than that, almost anything goes; in over 8 years of blogging at Livejournal and Dreamwidth, I've banned about three people and frozen less than half a dozen threads.

Caveat: My blog, or journal, is personal, not commercial. The important aspect of the comments is "I'm enjoying them;" not that they be on-topic or within a certain emotional range.

[Alex Bleach]

My blog has had no comments so far, maybe it's not that good! I think if it's the author's blog then they can edit it anyway they want, when I had a sort-of negative review on smashwords, the downloads actually went up that day.