On Taking Control of Blog Comments: Some discussion and an invitation
One way to know what your readers like is to allow them the ability to leave comments. There can be downsides to allowing comments. Visitors can post negative or offensive comments just as easily as constructive comments. Another issue of concern is blog-spam. Spammers will go on your site and leave messages like "loved your site and keep up the good work LINK". The link is what they want to put on your site because it can help them with their rankings on search engines. There are methods to limiting spam by asking for registration or by moderating the postings before allowing them to be posted. These steps may lessen your reader’s willingness to post a comment. As an alternative, you can ask to be notified when a new comment has been posted. If you don’t like the posting, you can delete it.
Yesterday I deleted three comments. One comment was a protest to my having deleted a previous comment. Baha'i Views is not a neutral forum. It's not a forum at all; there are plenty of those. This is an advocacy blog. It is my personal webspace. I see it as my public sitting room. Visitors are welcome to come in and visit if they are truely seeking or have something constructive to share. But not if their minds are already made up and they have come to dispute. They are free to express themselves on their own blog or on a forum somewhere. Avowed antagonists have usually done a lot of that before coming here.
I delete desirive comments from my site, but I save them for future reference, if needed. I invite any Baha'i blogger who has been a recipient of blog comment abuse to email a copy of the comment they have removed from their site for collective use here. My email... -gw
1 comment:
I love what you said here:
"Baha'i Views is not a neutral forum. It's not a forum at all; there are plenty of those. This is an advocacy blog. It is my personal webspace. I see it as my public sitting room."
Way to reclaim your sitting room, friend! Amen!
Post a Comment