The ethics of managing comments

Getting comments on your blog is usually something that bloggers look forward to.  For the most part, people comment when they like what you’ve written or agree with what you’ve had to say.

As a first impression, a high comment count leads to instant credibility. A blog with a large number of comments may be perceived by casual visitors as holding more weight than a similar blog that has no comments or only sparse comments.  In this light, comments may be seen as the life’s blood of a new blog and as such, comments should be encouraged.

But what is the proper way to deal with a commenter that disagrees with your opinion or worse, simply gets rude or offensive?  If you blog about controversial topics (or simply blog for a long enough time), you are going to see some of these.  If you make a point of tackling the tough subjects, it’s a good bet that at least half of your comments are going to disagree with your opinion of the subject.  Another quarter of those comments are going to be rude replies.

Why you should never delete a comment that disagrees with your opinion:

A blog is designed as an interactive medium.  Any comment is a chance for you to continue a discussion with your readers, to further your position on a topic, or just allow you the chance to lend a more personal touch to what you’ve written.  A dissenting comment gives you the opportunity to address an issue more detail than you did in the original post or to explain something in a different way, should your readers find the original entry vague or unclear.

Someone will always disagree with your opinion.  Don’t take these posts a attacks, take them as conversation.  Answer them courteously and with care.  You are responding to another human being, not just a series of 0′s and 1′s.  The sign of a great blogger is his or her ability to answer criticism or negativity with a smile and a ton of respect, not to flame his or her opposition or simply toss that comment into the null file because it challenges what you have to say.

So when should you delete a comment?

While you should always answer comments that disagree with your ideas, there are most definitely times when a comment should be deleted immediately. These include, but are not limited to, the following reasons:

• Obvious Spam:
  The commenter dropped his URL 3 or 4 times in the comment, the comment is simply gibberish with a link, or the comment is something completely generic that’s obviously been added by a machine or spam bot.  These should be tossed to /dev/null or deleted immediately.
• Derogatory or Socially unacceptable comments:
  I have no idea why some people feel the need to post this type of comment, but they sometimes do.  If your commenter feels the need to use a slew of profanity or spread a hate-filled agenda using comments on your blog, they should most definitely be deleted as soon as they are identified.  This type of comment at best will generate more of the same.  At worst, they cost you readers.
• Comments that personally insult other commenters on your blog:
  This is an even worse case scenario than above.  One person took the time to leave his or her thoughts on something you have written and someone else personally attacks this commenter because either their opinion differs or they simply have not mastered the art of being anything other than a jack*$$.  These comments should be deleted and followed by a comment, post or general message of your own stating that it will not be tolerated for any reason.  Then block that person from commenting permanently.  It is your responsibility to ensure that your readers feel comfortable posting comments, don’t lose the trust that they give you.  Fight for them

There are several more reasons that you might choose to delete a comment, but think about it before you do.  It’s better to err on the side of a little spamminess than to put off someone who might simply not understand the etiquette of blog commenting.

I have a trackback from a blog that said horrible things about one of my posts.  Should I delete it?

No.  You should approve it and then check your page views for the day.  There’s a good chance that you will see an increase in traffic and perhaps comments on that particular post.  As the (in)famous quote by Brendan F. Behan so succinctly words it:

There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.

In more modern circles this is usually shortened to; “Any press is good press” or “All press is good press”. It’s as true a statement as can be made.  Any publicity will get you noticed.  Some of the readers that the negative comment prompted to come see what you really had to say might just be inclined to agree with your side of the issue, or simply like your style.   You get traffic, you gain readers, it’s all good.

I personally had one group of individuals go crazy calling me names and being completely derogatory towards me because of one post I wrote about a year ago.  In the end, they gained me over 1,000 visits for the day of the post and 3,000 overall.  Of those, I’m sure a few are still reading the blog in question.

My response?  I sent the blogger that started the insult-fest a very polite and professional thank you email for the traffic he or she sent over and thanked him/her for taking the time to read the post carefully enough to pick it apart.  I think that I unnerved the person.  They have never mentioned any of my sites again.  That’s too bad, really.  I made about $300.00 on that passion filled flurry.

I’ll wrap this up with a cautionary statement.  While this is a post about how you can avoid becoming a comment Nazi, you also need to realize that not everyone out there really cares if they offend their readers or not.  You will probably find that at least on comment that you leave is deleted or never allowed through moderation.  Don’t let this discourage you.  Continue leaving comments on other people’s blogs, but remember the rules above.

Post constructive comments that are actually relevant to the topic of the post.  Be courteous and if you disagree be even more diligent in making the point that you disagree with the position the person is writing about and not the person who wrote it.  Don’t do anything on someone else’s blog that you would not allow on your own.  It’s common courtesy, but it’s often ignored on the Internet.  It’s time for us to bring it back.

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