To Moderate, or not to moderate - that is the question

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Photo by: D’arcy Norman

Whilst visiting some of the many blogs I do each day, and when I feel it is appropriate I leave a comment on the blog post.  I always like to leave a comment on a topic or area that I am interested and/or have an opinion on (and I do with many), as I think it helps me to understand what I’ve just read and also encourages me to check back, or read a few more posts on that particular blog.  It always confuses me as to why bloggers want you to register to comment on their blog, or that one of your comments has to be moderated before it is published on the blog – yes, I know it’s to stop spammers and with a blog that has grown to be large and with a lot of decent (and not so decent) readers (spammers) a blogger doesn’t want the site to be over run.  However, askimet spam filters and others I feel are moderately effective at combating this spam and I often update my filters to flag up the usual ‘words’ that a lot of spammers will include in their comment v***ra, or riding him like a ***** etc.

4 Benefits of Moderating

You can control your blog – if you moderate all of the comments that are added to your blog, then you can catch any comments that you believe are spam, or use abusive language in their writing.

You can keep up with the community – moderating comments allows you to read everyone who is adding to the conversation and community, and you can respond accordingly with your view as the blogger.

Comment spam can be reduced – If you’re checking and moderating every comment then you can check all links to the commenter and other sources.

You can filter out negative comments – If there’s something that someone said that you didn’t like, then you can catch it before the actual writing is published on your blog.

4 Negatives of Moderating

People may become frustrated and leave – for some people if they have to login or register to post a comment and that comment doesn’t appear for a while, they may feel that they’ve missed out on the conversation.

People think they’re being censored/wondering if your blog is honest – people do become suspicious if someone else has to ‘verify’ their comments before they’re published on the blog, something linking in with ‘big brother’.

You might just simply not have time – once your blog grows, would you have enough time to moderate each comment which is placed on the blog?  Or, you have a few blogs and you spend most of your time writing, would you be able to spend a few hours moderating comments?  Most bloggers couldn’t.

If you’re not quick on moderation, will conversation get lost – if you intend to moderate less than once a day could more people comment on a post one day and then other people post a comment that has already been suggested by another reader earlier, but wasn’t showing because it hadn’t been moderated?  Would this negatively affect your readers?

Speed – how much time have your visitors got? – logging in, registering and loading different windows on a site takes time.  Readers truly don’t want to be hanging around for a page to load – I know I definitely don’t, I want to read the content, note down my point of view and go onto something else – my time is limited and I have a lot of things to do.

Where to change moderation

If you’re not sure where or how to change your moderation settings, then you’ll need to go to your wordpress dashboard and click on Options > Discussion and change the settings that are circled below.  Also, you’ll need to decide whether people need to register and log in to comment or whether you’ll allow people the comment without logging in (the latter I believe is better).

If you’re using a blogger blog and you are not sure how to change the settings, then see here.

What do you do?

It would be interesting to hear what you do on your blog and why.  Do you moderate and if you do, do you just do the first comment and then let the commenter post away to their hearts content on other posts, or are you deeply controlling the comments on your blog.  Also, do you like people to login to your blog to comment so you feel more ‘secure’ in the comments your blog is getting?  It would be interesting to hear what you have to say.

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