Comment Free? Not for Me.
Jul 20th, 2007 by Alex
Dave Winer thinks that blog comments are part of the problem and that they intrude upon my freedom of speech. That’s a bunch of hooey. I think they’re beneficial. As I expand upon ideas others can chime in with their experiences and opinions. I find that to be valuable. Few things are better than a well reasoned response to something you’ve said or written, even if it doesn’t agree with your sentiments. Yes I get some stupid responses as well, but since I moderate all comments I can always choose to not allow it. The same goes for anonymous comments, insulting, or derogatory comments. Guess Dave hasn’t figured that out or feels that it’s below him to moderate the things.
I used to disallow all comments but left things open for email correspondence. I got a lot longer responses, but not many. The barrier for responding was too high and since I opened things up I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback. With the exception of a few threads regarding, if the response isn’t well written or doesn’t add anything I’ll usually dump it.
My pet peeve is people who leave comments (insightful or otherwise) with faulty email addresses. I don’t use the addresses for anything but the software does try to notify people of replies. Faulty or fake email addresses often generate bounce messages (that I get) that I have to sort through. If you don’t want to put your real email address down, consider using spamgourmet. It’s free and it works.
As far as comments stifling my freedom of speech, that’s just wrong unless you feel you’ve got to please your audience. My blog isn’t that popular. I don’t feel stifled in order to please my “regulars” — I write what I want. If they don’t like it, they don’t comment. If they really don’t like it, they don’t have to return. I write for me.
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I gotta say, that email feature is really freaking annoying. I don’t want a continuous thread of emails based on where I comment. I just want to leave a comment, and if I’m interested enough, follow up later.
You should follow the design of similar systems and make it opt IN and not opt OUT. I should have to check the box if I want to get emails, not UNCHECK it if I DON’T.
Oh, and I prefer spambob for my quick-n-dirty disposable email addresses.
Ha! On my site, they only comment if they hate what I say. Rarely do I get a positive and/or intelligent comment. Usually it’s “you R the sux0rz! My band roolz ur mom!”
Originally, I required all comments to be approved by me. But that restricts others’ free speech, so now I let all comments stand as written, unless they are spam. Then I put the kibosh on that.
Oh, that too- I’m a firm believer in anonymity. On ACW’s blog, you don’t even have to put in a username, much less an email address. I feel like that encourages more people to comment (and there are plenty of folks who comment without an email address or website link)
I use a combination of Akismet and Bad Behavior as spam prevention and there hasn’t been one get through since I started.
For a while, I was sort of anti-akismet since they don’t really reveal what magical voodoo they use to kill spam, but my frustration got the better of me. It works GREAT.
mokiejovis: Opt-out… right you are sir. Not sure if that’s something that I tweaked in the beginning, but it definitely wasn’t proper… until now. I’m almost always logged in when I’m browsing; the comment code sees me as the author of each entry and doesn’t display the box. Anonymous comments are a mixed bag: I don’t post anonymously, my blog is very attributable to me and my lifestyle. Of course now with the opt-out business, the bounced emails will probably be a moot point unless someone goes out of their way to subscribe a bogus address. I don’t care so much about the real identity of the a commenter, but pseudonyms/handles allow me to get a handle on the persona without knowing their true identity. At present Wordpress doesn’t have a “comment author must fill out name” option, only name and e-mail. So that’s where I’m at there. Akismet is voodoo. I haven’t used Bad Behavior yet, they reveal even less about their software than Akismet does.
AGT: I use the “comment author must have a previously approved comment” and Akismet to filter out most of the link spam. It catches most of ‘em, but not everything. I figure if you can leave a halfway decent comment you’re likely not to be a complete tool.