One of the most common concerns raised when the subject of business blogging is under discussion is what to do about critical or hostile comments. I’ve been explaining the theory for a few years now in various forums and in various countries. But an experience this week showed me I still had (have) some learning to do.
What happened was that I had a critical comment on one of my blog posts here the other morning. It wasn’t a nasty comment, in fact very mild and I wasn’t completely sure the comment was about this blog or about another, the subject of the blog post being commented on. And on re-reading the post I realise I may have implicitly invited some criticism.
But to be frank, it annoyed me. And I felt aggrieved.
Which was a perfectly human response.
Just not a very helpful one.
After all, I talk to people about how to respond to this sort of thing. I include reference to it in presentations. I write about it.
So this was where the rubber hit the road, so to speak.
What’s the advice I give others?
Like others who specialisz in consulting or coaching in the field of blogging and other social media, my response to questions and concerns about critical comments on business blogs has been along the lines of:
- it goes with being part of the conversation
- people are talking about you and your company anyway (or you hope they are!) so you are just hearing what is already being said
- by dealing with criticism openly, you help your clients, your market get a sense of what you stand for, your principles
- you also get the opportunity to put your side of the conversation, not letting it go by default
I believe those points are all valid. But they are just principles, guides. Dealing with the actual experience means that I and other business bloggers need to take account not just of the theory – our logical response - but of our emotional response. A test of our emotional intelligence (EQ) if you will.
So after these reflections, I left a response to the comment, seeking clarification. There has been no reply yet and somehow I feel there will not be one.
I’m actually grateful to the commenter. His comment argued (if I understood it correctly) that my posts should offer more value for readers. Working on that can’t be a bad thing, just as getting over the dent to my pride can’t be a bad thing.
And on the bigger picture of offering my services to help businesses understand and manage the blog-enabled conversations, I believe what I’m learning from this experience will help me be more genuinely and helpfully sympathetic the next time the issue of critical comments is raised.
Picture credit: kretyen, via Flicker – Creative Commons licence
Taking the Middle Ground on Comment Moderation
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.
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
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:
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:
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.
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
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comment spam free zone badge by Suzie Cheel