How Should I Moderate My Blog Comments?

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Question

One of the responses to my blog is from a man named Erich Baldock. My husband checked his IP address and he seems to be associated with the hospital in Kalasin Province, Thailand. I was excited to think someone from over there might have stumbled on the site. Initially I marked it “approved.” Then a friend e-mailed to say that she wasn’t going to respond to the blog because of the words in his message … about “gentle consumers.” She think that he’s going to walk away with the addresses of the people who responded. I told her that he wouldn’t have access to that information …. and I thought it was simply that English isn’t his first language. Then I started wondering if others might be put off responded …. in case they believe as she does so I “unapproved” it. Would you please provide me with some insight, based on your experience?

Answer

You’re right. No one would have access to her information. If she’d rather sign in without giving her email address I use two plugins in my site to allow people to sign up with Facebook or Twitter. Neither of these are supported by PageMaster and you shouldn’t be intimidated with “API Keys”. (They aren’t that scary, just a way your site can communicate with Twitter or Facebook.) If you’re up for it, check out:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-to-twitter/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-facebookconnect/

The beauty of adding these plugins is:

1. People don’t need to leave their email on your site.
2. When they post on your site it goes across their social network…giving your post more social media traction.

I have a comment policy on my blog. It outlines a few things you need to consider. You may want to consider one for your site.

Would I be worried about a friend not commenting because of the poor grammar of another commentator? No.

Your blog, over time, will build a community. It will regulate itself for the most part. Why don’t you get the ball rolling? I’d tell her to leave the comments on the blog. Why not have a discussion like that in the public view? It would help you to define your own comment policy.

Here’s the thing I’ve found. If no one comments on a post, no one else will comment either. As soon as comments start coming, it allows others to join the conversation. I’ve left some questionable comments on my blog just to invite other people to comment.

Hope that helps.