I’ve tested the use of moderated comments and trackbacks in this blog for over two months now. As I mentioned at the outset, I had concerns that moderated commenting would reduce the number of legitimate comments I might receive and could impede the dialogue which takes place in comments. Those fears have been realized to a certain extent, and this is a clear negative thing about moderated commenting. On the other hand, it’s been such a relief not to worry at all about comment spammers. That problem is entirely gone now. I no longer have to fear that if I take a little break from the blog, as I’m about to, that when I return, it’s going to be overrun with spam.
These days, spammers aren’t the only problem with comments. It seems that the law is tending towards the view that bloggers are legally responsible for the comments which appear on their blogs. I wrote about one example over the weekend concerning anonymous political comments on Australian blogs. On the same day I heard about a SEO blogger who has been sued over comments appearing on his blog – ironically the blogger is somebody who has previously made critical comments here. If there’s a chance I’m going to be held responsible for other people’s writing on my blog, it’s nice to be able to control what appears on the blog. Of course, most of the time, moderation isn’t absolutely necessary – a bad comment can be deleted before it attracts any adverse consequences. But who knows, I can imagine a situation when the damage could be done in a very short time.
Comment moderation isn’t perfect, but it takes a lot of stress out of my blogging life, and so I’m going to keep it on. I’ve hardly mentioned trackbacks in this discussion, simply because I’ve so few legitimate trackbacks in the last 2 months – although there has been quite a lot of attempted trackback spam, which didn't get anywhere!
The icing on the cake is that comment moderation helps ward away the trolls and meanies. I will allow comments which include disagreement with me over the issues - but once they cross the line into insults and personal attacks, I have no qualms against blocking them.
