comment moderation :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

From what I’ve read on a number of blogs over the years, there is a discussion about comment moderation but it’s basically binary: you are either for it or “agin” it. There is in fact a third option, which is a modified moderation, a middle ground, if you will.

Commentspamfree picture Comment moderation is a topic about which people have strong opinions, especially those who feel that if you moderate comments you are choking off the conversation that can build up in a comment thread. I’m not insensitive to that argument and every now and again I think maybe I should switch off comment moderation, with the idea of providing a more free flow of conversation.

It’s right about then that a spam attack, masquerading as comments, comes along to bring me back down to earth.

Just now, a quick search on the subject reminded me that I posted about this back in March 2007 – Comment Moderation Turned on Reluctantly

Until now I’ve resisted the impulse to moderate comments. But lately I’ve been irritated by finding “comments” that are just excuses to include links to other sites, without any evident relevance for the topic of the post being “commented” upon.

I’ve just had another flurry of “comments” which fit that description.

So I’ve decided to keep moderation on, but not totally.

The middle ground position I mentioned above, and the basis of the policy and practice here, is that only the following comments are held for moderation:

comments from first time commenters
comments with a few suspicion-inducing elements

The ability to do this, without having to watch the blog day and night, is provided by the excellent toolkit in WordPress.org blogs, under Administration -> Settings -> Discussion.

There are some basic “suspicion-inducing” elements for which you can set moderation in the “on” position, so to speak:

a specific number of hyperlinks – number specified by the blogger
specific words or phrases – specified by the blogger

WordPress also makes it easy for the blogger to edit comments. I have started to do that with “harmless” comments that contain clearly spammy links, mostly quite irrelevant in terms of the blog post being commented on. As we have CommentLuv installed, the commenter already has a link back to his or her blog.

That’s why I say that, courtesy of these WordPress tools, I am able to have a middle ground approach on comment moderation.

This is the policy we have – displayed on the Comments Policy page and linked from the right sidebar.

Comments are moderated for first time commenters and for comments with “spam-like” elements, such as an excessive number of hyperlinks.

So for your second time comment and thereafter, and provided your comment does not trigger our other “unacceptable use” principles stated here, it should appear immediately.

We reserve the right to delete comments we deem as spam, transparent attempts to get traffic without providing any useful commentary, and any contributions which are offensive or inappropriate for civilised discourse.

Links are ok, if relevant to the post: otherwise they will be edited out.

If you experience any problem with posting comments, please contact us immediately and we will see what needs to be done to resolve the situation on a “win-win” basis.

To me this seems a pretty rational, not unduly restrictive approach to comment moderation. The comment stream is kept free of spam and once people have made one comment their subsequent comments are posted automatically. What’s not to like? I welcome comments and dissent, within the rules .

comment spam free zone badge by Suzie Cheel

Australian Government Consultation Blog Discussion Paper As a blogging evangelist and former public servant and later a consultant to governments, I was more than interested to receive yesterday an email alerting me to the publication by the Australian Government of a discussion paper about a proposed government blog.

The Australian Government Consultation Blog Discussion Paper is, as the name implies, an invitation to public discussion about the potential value for government and the community in having a government “consultation blog”, what such a blog might contain, how it would be managed and so on.

The paper is available as a downloadable PDF and you can also read it on the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) website.

The paper provides some background on “the new internet environment”, covering the evolution in the way people communicate online and spelling out some challenges for government in seeking to participate more fully in this environment.

Some key “features” are proposed for the blog:

providing information about a consultation;
responding to a consultation;
people telling others about the consultation;
finding a consultation.

And challenges are listed, including the challenge of comment moderation – some draft moderation guidelines are included.

I’ve trawled around the web for some months, looking for information about government initiatives with blogging and have been in no way overwhelmed with results. I don’t know of any other document quite like this, which looks seriously at the possibilities and challenges for a blog set up by government for the specific purpose of facilitating community involvement in government decision-making.

Corporations and blogging consultants could also find the document useful, especially in its canvassing of some of the issues of blog comment and forum moderation.

With an Australian Federal election in the offing, there is of course a chance that this paper could disappear without a trace. That would be a pity. The possibilities and challenges outlined are not framed in any party-political partisan way and the discussion which hopefully will ensue should be of interest to any contemporary government which is committed to more than lip-service about public consultation and involvement of the citizenry in decision-making.

Nor is the paper narrowly focused on Australia. The issues canvassed here and suggested ways forward would be usefully examined by any democratic government.