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Tuesday, August 27, 2222

How To Get Comments Approved On This Blog
PLEASE Read This Article!

One of the onerous jobs one has when running a blog like this is "moderating" comments. I USED to have an "open door" policy about comments - anyone, including "anonymous", could post anything they wanted.

Unfortunately, some users abused this trust by planting "comment spam"on my site, so I had to take the unpleasant, (but necessary), step of forbidding any hyperlinks on my site(s).  For a more detailed explanation of this, please see my earlier posting We Interrupt This Blog For An Important Announcement.



I don't know why, maybe people don't read the BIG disclaimer prior to creating a post, or maybe it's a part of their signature, but I still get comments with embedded hyperlinks.  To make matters worse, Blogger will not let me edit comments.  Period.  Even if it's only to X-out a few %$#@!'s here or there.

This puts me in the unpleasant position of having to delete comments that might otherwise contain useful content, simply because they contain active hyperlinks.

So, please hearken to my plea:

If you want to get comments approved, don't include hyperlinks!

What say ye?

Jim (JR)

4 comments:

  1. Hello Jim,

    I can understand your pain but if you remove link option from comments then you will loose great amount of traffic! Instead of removing all links you can increase moderation level.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Were it only that simple!

      Unfortunately, there is only one level of moderation available at Blogger, and that level includes two, and only two, options as noted in the disclaimer:
      1. Accept the comment as-is, no edits allowed.
      2. Reject the comment as-is, no edits allowed.

      I go into more detail about this in my blog post We Interrupt This Blog For An Important Announcement! Please read it.

      Viz.:

      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      (quoted text)
      Additionally, I have to be really strict about embedded hyperlinks in comments.

      Translation:
      If the comment has an embedded hyperlink, it get's trashed. Period.

      Why?
      Because I just spent the last half-day-or-so going through every single message on this blog, comparing every single comment here with the nasties I found when looking at the comments on WordPress there, and removing, one-at-an-effing-time, any suspicious comments that I found; sanitizing the comment stream so that no one who comes to my blog gets hammered.

      And why is that necessary?
      Because Blogger won't let me edit comments or view hidden content. And because I can't view hidden content, I can't see what might be hiding behind an embedded hyperlink without clicking on it, and I won't risk what loyalty my blog may have for the sake of a few hyperlinks.

      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      I am sorry it has to be this way. I breaks my heart to have to reject what would otherwise be relevant commentary due to an embedded hyperlink, but I have no choice. If Blogger allowed me more editorial control over comments made on my blogs, we would not have this problem.

      Jim (JR)

      Delete
  2. What's up with the "Tuesday, August 27, 2222" date that appears when I view "How To Get Comments Approved On This Blog" post?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alan,

    Unfortunately, Blogger provides a very limited administrative experience. Among the limitations is that I cannot make a blog article "sticky". In order to make sure it's the first thing people see, I have to give it a date way, way into the future.

    I had considered a WordPress blog in the past - even tried setting one up on a local machine to learn my way around - and discovered that it was a bigger time-sink than Facebook! - requiring several books and possibly even a class or two over at the local community college to use it effectively - and I really didn't, (and don't), have that kind of time to invest in something I don't get a chance to mess with much anymore.

    I'd rather spend time with the granddaughters, or messing with Charlie and helping over at the Dexter forums.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for sharing your thoughts here at the QA Tech-Tips Blog!

Note:
This blog will not, repeat NOT, publish comments that contain ANY KIND OF HYPERLINK.

If your comment contains ANY KIND OF HYPERLINK it WILL BE DELETED.

Please read the article at How To Get Comments Approved On This Blog for additional information regarding this rule.

Thank you for understanding.

Jim (JR)