Sorting the wheat from the chaff

There has been discussion recently about whether or not blog comments should be moderated. Some maintain an 'open for all' policy, and allow any comments to be posted on their blog. They do so for a number of reasons. Some wish to make posting comments as easy as possible, and want their blog to be as welcoming as it can be. Others do not have the time to moderate all the comments that are posted to their site. It's a very democratic approach.

Several years ago, I took the decision to moderate comments on my own blog, not because I'm undemocratic, but because there are two kinds of comment I will not allow to be published. The first kind are comments that come from people who will be politely referred to as 'trolls'. Trolls post hateful, destructive, off-topic and inflammatory comments, because they enjoy provoking emotional responses and upsetting others. You can imagine how heart breaking that kind of comment could be for children who are blogging. In the UK, under the Communications Act of 2003 it is an offence to send messages that are of grossly offensive, obscene, indecent or menacing character. Two recent court cases have resulted in internet trolls being successfully prosecuted and sentenced to prison. For whatever reasons these individuals post such comments, I don't want that kind of content on my blog, so I usually screen for them, and delete them if I receive them. I dealt with one of my own personal trolls several years ago by openly writing about them here in Dear eLearning 101.

The second reason I moderate my blog comments is due to the increase in spam comments that are coming through, sometimes several each day. This blog currently has an average of 125,000 visitors each month, so the spam messages can be frequent. You can easily recognise most spam messages because they are sychophantic and painfully complimentary, sometimes very bland, and often written in appallingly bad English. They always contain at least one hyperlink. The example (above) is a fairly clear cut case of some sad person desperately trying to get people to click on their links. Who knows what the links contain? They could take you to dodgy sites or open you up for a virus attack.

I don't want these comments on my blog for a number of reasons. I don't want my readers exposed to dangerous links that may infect their computers with a virus or subject them to hacking. Secondly, I only want relevant and useful comments to appear on my blog. Anyone who wishes to comment constructively on my blog is very welcome to do so, but I won't accept spurious or irrelevant contributions. Finally, look at the example below - probably one of the most subtle spam comments I have received recently. Note that there are two hyperlinks, almost invisible in the post. Can you spot them?

Now you know why I screen all the comments submitted to this blog. I want to promote great discussions here, but to do so, I occasionally have to sort the wheat from the chaff. Do you moderate your blog comments, and if so why?



Sorting the wheat from the chaff by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.