So, with Round of Words running, I’m spending a lot of time blog hopping to check in with other members. In the last two check-ins, I discovers a range of bloggers pre-screening their blog comments!
Of all the things bloggers do, this one bewilders me the most. Open commenting does so much for a blog, and losing that open communication channel really hurts what kind of feedback you’re going to get.
Discussion
One of my favorite things here is when you guys get together and chat with each other. Seeing conversations inspired by things I’ve written is an awesome feeling! From a more practical standpoint, the additional information in comment sections can raise the value of a post quite quickly.
When you pre-screen your comments, you take away this discussion as people have to wait for you to approve every comment.
Engagement
The second thing open commenting does, at least in my personal experience, is raise reader engagement. When I take the time to comment on a post, I check back a few times to check for responses, both from the blogger and other readers. When I get blocked by a pre-screen option, I often never return to check on the status. It’s discouraging.
Censorship
From Mr.Enjoy Used under Creative Commons
This is a really big scary thing. While I’m not going to compare it to government censorship (it’s nothing like it), pre-screening makes it very hard to tell if a blog is deleting comments simply because they disagree. While a blog is a personal space and can be dealt with as that person pleases, allowing disagreement and a little conflict is good for bringing more than one side to an issue.
So do yourselves and your readers a favor: Don’t pre-screen your comments, but do have a specific comment policy on hand to keep real abusers out.
Round of Words?
http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/ Writing challenge that happens four times a year. Cool idea.
On my blog, I have to approve the comment the first time someone tries to comment because I found that otherwise I have too much spam sneaking by. After that, comments appear automatically on my site. I like that because I don’t want those comments to have to wait until I get a chance to approve them. I want them immediately up so that if a reader gets there before me, he or she can see the new comment. I gain so much from my commenters and I want other people to be able to gain from them too.
I’ve commented before on that, but I’ve been really happy with Akismet on this site. Very few false positives, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a spam comment make it to the page. If you do have a history of spam comments getting past any spam blocker you have on your site, I totally get having some sort of limit.
Thanks for stopping by, Marcy.
Akismet does all the work for me. I don’t have to moderate at all. You raise some great points, Patrick! It’s really true for me; if I have to just through hoops to leave a comment, I walk away. I already have too much on my plate to bother with that.
Are you going to Congress of Gamers? Paul will be there!
I would, but I’m completely broke this week. Which is really unfortunate.
“jump” not “just” LOL. Sorry for the confusion!
Totally agree. And akismet hardly ever lets any spam go through. I think I’ve had one in the past year.
I haven’t used anything to stop the spam because it is only beginning to be a problem. I will have to look into it.
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