DISQUS

Jenn Givler · 2 years ago

Well Chris, I have to agree. I'm not a fan of a one way blog conversation LOL! I enjoy reading articulate, thought provoking posts - but if I'm asked to register for a particular blog, I really consider if it's worth it.

I don't mind having a TypePad, Wordpress, or Blogger account... but when someone restricts the comments to their specific blog, it does make me wonder what their motive is...

Now, I do moderate comments on my own blog. I do this because of the spam factor. However, I usually approve comments within 24 hours (usually a lot less).

So, I say, if you really enjoyed the blog, contact the writer - it may be another case of them not knowing what's up... or - it might be nice to just know what their thought process is...

I think if the blog owner is articulate and

Trina Lamarche · 2 years ago

Hello Christina!

I completely agree with letting people freely comment! I have a blog website and for me, people commenting is exciting. I don't want a simple step like; "please sign in" drive the people who are interested away.

The way I look at it is, these people who are commenting on my website could eventually be clients of mine.

Commenting is such a good way to interact with other VAs as well.

Thanks for the great post!

Trina Lamarche
http://www.efficientva.com
http://www.vaassistant.com

Genesis · 2 years ago

I couldn´t agree more! I can´t count the times I have jumped away from a blog because you are required to sign in just to post a comment.

My other pet peeve is Blogspot blogs that don´t allow "others". For some reason, I can´t get into Blogger and have been unable to set up an account, so if a blogspot blog only allows registered users, I can´t comment!

That being said, I do moderate comments on my blog, but I don´t think that it is too much to ask for someone to wait half an hour or so (I am constantly checking) for their comment to go live.

Anita Campbell · 2 years ago

Hi Cristina, I can understand your frustration. I think a lot of times the problem stems from anti-spam measures. The spammers have made it next to impossible to have comments as open as we'd like. I've had to invest quite a bit in site programming to deal with the spam problem. Ugh -- they're awful, those spammers!

Anita

Denise Willms · 2 years ago

Hi Cristina,

Before I posted here I had to check my own blog and make sure I wasn't guilty of this also!

I have decided to moderate comments because of spam, but I ran through the rest of my settings just in case I had missed something else that would make it difficult for others to comment on my blog.

What do you know - I had turned off the option for email notification when someone posts a comment. Thank you for the reminder to make things as user-friendly as possible. It's always the goal, but sometimes we forget how they see it.

Denise

Lodewijkvdb · 2 years ago

I couldn't agree more! Leaving comments should be made as easy as possible.

A while back I someone rewarded me a link to one of my articles. When I visited and wanted to comment on his/her post, it was utterly impossible to leave comments. The box was there (and very prominently as well), but when I submitted I got some sort of message that only registered users where allowed to comment. But there was NO link to register at all.

Trying to be helpful I went looking for other ways to contact the blogger (mail, contact form or whatever), but there was nothing to be found.

I had no choice but to give up. Not surprisingly there were no comments at all on this blog.

I love comments, I don't even moderate the first ones :) Akismet catches most spam, manually removing the ones that do slip through is not that much work.

The Happy Rock · 2 years ago

I think a lot of people just plan don't know. That is what you ran across, and in my experience most people just haven't learned blogging etiquette and don't know were to look.

Plenty of articulate people with a have great writing voice and like the blog outlet, but don't know much about computers or blogging. That is just my experience. I have yet to come across someone with those options set on purpose.

Bonnie · 2 years ago

I never thought of it quite this way. I've seen many nasty comments added to blogs, so when I recently created my own blog, I decided to "moderate" in order to avoid unsuitable comments. I wasn't looking to avoid comments that disagreed with mine thoughts, just ugly, unsuitable comments (i.e. profane). After reading your post and a few of the comments that followed, I have changed my blog to "unmmoderated", since I DO want to connect with people and encourage comments. Thanks, for the insight!