New Comment policy

March 1st, 2009

Due to the recent rise of non-comments that are essentially comment spam I am now enforcing some level of comment moderation.  If you are a first time commenter now then your comment will need approval and I will be much stricter on the spam comments.

If your comment is not interesting or constructive it may well disappear.  I do want to encourage conversation on this blog, and as the comment count edges towards 5000 I feel that it has been accomplished, but recently I think comment spam has become a problem.

Comment Policy

When posting comments please use your name or your initials, please do not use your company name. Please don't link to your company name in the comment text either. This will be considered spam, and will be deleted. Opinion of any kind is welcome, but any personal attacks will also be deleted.

  • http://www.coffeegeek.com Mark

    Having to police comments means, according to one of my twitter followers, that you’re doing something right and popular. ;)

  • http://theotherblackstuff.ie David Walsh

    I reckon there is some irony in these comments somewhere.

    Somehow I have a hankering for hip-hop, web-design, cell-phone accessories, and real-estate.

    ;)

  • http://blog.colinloh.com Colin Loh

    I use akismet for my wordpress blog, but I kept getting spam until I installed WordPress Hashcash at http://wordpress-plugins.feifei.us/hashcash/ Try this one and let me know if it works out for you. Hope it helps.

  • http://www.relishwadebridge.co.uk hugo

    I rest my case…..

  • http://www.welivethis.com/newsfeed/2009/03/03/ali-vegas-top-gets-lonely/ Ali Vegas

    Out of curiousity, what would you consider a legitimate comment? I just noticed you deleted the majority of the comments here and most seemed pretty legitimate?

    • http://www.cooltricksntips.com Rahul Jadhav

      Ya please clarify what is your criteria for choosing spam comments as my comments were deleted even when it wasnt a spam comment

      Thanks

    • http://ryanmartinrealestate.com Ryan Martin

      WTF James? My comments were pretty constructive. I’m not sure why you chose to delete them?

  • http://www.fish-recipe.net Fish Recipe

    That’s great to hear that you are tightening up the reigns on the commenting, and getting rid of commentators are spamming, and leaving worthless comments. I know in the past, when I ran my own personal blog, I too had to do this, but the one thing I did differently though, is that I openly expressed to my readers, what exact type of comments I would approve and what type of comments I would not. I had a link near the comment box saying “comment policy”, and you’d be surprised how much that cut down on some of the spammers who would just leave comments like “nice post” or “thank you” etc.

    I hope this helps!

    Till then,

    Jean

  • http://www.dintz.com Jonathan Lister

    Comment spam is definitely something I do not enjoy taking care of! If you’re blog was dofollow, I’m sure you would’ve taken this step ages ago!

    Anyways, would you mind telling us what qualifies as a legitimate comment?

  • http://www.products4testing.co.uk Electrical Test Equipment

    I got your understanding that comment spam can be pretty big problem for your but this is complete exposure you site in the public eyes.

  • http://www.blogaboutnothingatall.com Kai Lo

    I’m assuming you are doing some kind of DoFollow because you have Top Commentator plugin. That is the price people pay for DoFollow policies, but at the same time, DoFollow really encourage more people to participate in posting comments. Can’t expect everyone to have valuable things to say. If you are talking about spam like “Great post!!!”, then I understand how you feel.

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  • http://www.antswiki.com/ The Ant – Facts About Ants

    I totally feel you, mate! One of my blogs has been flooded with BS ever since I turned dofollow on and added the “Top Commenters” plugin.

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