Comments on: Blog Comments and Engagement

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:28:23 +0000

@Jon Marks Thanks Jon – Yep, bang on – Akismet is doing an awesome job “Akismet has caught 1,866 spam for you since you first installed it”

I like your self effacing “random, informal and full of rubbish” – your blog is a good read, interesting and it sounds like “you” – that’s what attracts the comments.

Which I guess is a great point that nobody makes about attracting comments; you need to sound like you want a conversation – you need to attract a crowd and then let them feel like they can contribute. Plus, give them some thing they can get stuck into like – how the cloud is a crock of shit

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:15:03 +0000

@Kas Thomas – It is about confidence I agree, when I started I was cautious. Which is why the CMSWatch example seems so odd – this is a confident organisation that has no problem in resolutely expressing and defending it’s views. I really think that Twitter is perhaps the agent of change here, we expect to have the conversation now!

Also, great point – comments do, good or bad, absolutely reflect on the one making the comment rather than the blogger, again it’s probably a confidence thing to let that happen.

Thanks Kas.

By: Jon Marks

Jon Marks — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:44:53 +0000

Agree completely. I don’t moderate anything. Like you, just running WordPress with Akismet as a spam filter. Good thing too. Since I launched, I’ve had about 300 real comments and 1500 spam comments. Akismet has only ever let through 1 spam comment, and has blocked 2 genuine ones. I don’t even remove profanity comments, seeing I’ve been known to use the odd four letter word in my posts anyway.

In fact, I’m starting to think a reason I get quite a few comments is because my posts are so random, informal and full of rubbish. If something is neat and perfect, people are scared to comment as they worry they’ll mess it up. If it is already a mess …

By: Kas Thomas

Kas Thomas — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:23:08 +0000

I agree with you, the less moderation the better. On my personal blog, I started out (as many people do, I suspect) in fully-locked-down mode — no comments allowed. Then I opened it up to moderated comments — but only for registered commenters. I’ve long since dropped all restrictions. Anyone can comment on anything I write, anonymously or not. I do get a lot of anonymous comments, but they’re more often well-intentioned than not. The ones that are super-shrill or over-the-top angry, etc., I just leave in place since they usually say more about the commenter than about me. I’ve removed only two comments so far this year (out of 300+ total comments). Both of those were because of profanity.

Conversations are funny things. You can try to muzzle them, but they don’t entirely go away. They just happen somewhere else.