Making the most of blog comments: Part 11 - Everything in moderation

Earlier in this series of posts about blog comments, I looked at some of the implementation issues. This week I'm looking at some of the 'softer' skills involved in having comments on your blog site. Today I want to look at comment 'moderation'.

For many people, the word 'moderation' is simply synonymous with censorship, and conjures up images of faceless minions at major publishers deciding what can or cannot be said on the Internet. However, anyone who publishes any sort of contributions to their website needs to undertake a degree of moderation in what they allow to be published - even if they decide that their moderation policy is 'anything goes'.

There are three main areas to consider when you are thinking about how you moderate your site.

Offensive content

One of the most common reasons for moderating content is because it is 'offensive'. That can be because it is sexual in nature, incites hatred against a person or group, or is just personally unpleasant to the blog author or audience.

When thinking about whether to moderate content, bear in mind not just your own sensibilities, but the sensibilities of your potential audience. If you are writing a blog that addresses an older conservative audience, then comments which feature swearing or mild sexual references may be much less acceptable than if you are writing a blog aimed at a mature teenage audience. However, you should take particular care if your content is aimed at younger children.

There are also degrees of moderation. You could decide not to post a comment at all because the user swore, or you could decide simply to asterisk or edit out the swear word, but leave the rest of the comment to stand.

Legal risk

Another consideration when deciding whether to publish a comment or not is an assessment of legal risk. The chances are that this is unlikely to happen to the vast majority of bloggers, but you may find you have a comment that causes concern.

Particular attention should be paid if the comment concerns potential, forthcoming or current legal action or trials. Policing comments about terrorism trials, or the Madeleine McCann case would fall into this category, where it might be well worth exercising more caution than publishing the conspiracy theories that have been appearing on the Mirror and Sky News website message boards.

Don't forget, as well, that the Internet crosses international boundaries. What might be restricted information in one territory, may be freely available elsewhere. Recently, for example, the British press have been freely publishing pictures online of Evdokia Tzekou, the chief blackmailing suspect in the Zahopoulos sex DVD scandal, whilst she is protected by media anonymity in Greece.

There is still some legal fog as to who exactly can be held responsible for what is published in the comments on a blog. Is it solely the responsibility of the person who left the comment, or of the blogger who published it. Or their hosting service? Or the search engine that allows people to find it? We live in a world where Google can be sued for negative search engine results about an estate agent, or how someone has tagged a region of the world in Google Earth. Therefore, it sometimes seems safer to assume that you can potentially be held legally responsible for all of the content on your blog under any jurisdiction where you happen to be sued.

A couple of useful resources to read more about legal issues for small online publishers can be found at the Online Journalism Review and The Knight Citizen News Network

Spam

Another very good reason to moderate and not publish comments is spam. It doesn't take long when running a blog to encounter someone trying to use your comments form to advertise and gain extra links for their online services.

Sometimes, comment spam can seem very obvious. It is crammed full of URLs to dubious pr0n and pharma sites, and makes little sense, being seemingly made up of random chunks of English.

Other spam can be a bit more subtle. One spam network tries to promote links to their anti-depressant pills sales with comments that sound plausible along the lines of "Yeah, I really agree with your point, but I'm just too tired and depressed to write out a full comment today". The aim here is to get their link listed near the words 'tired' and 'depressed' all over the web. Other people just leave a short comment like 'Great site' and the URL they are trying to promote.

And some people are just plain cheeky - leaving 'real' comments with the sole aim of placing their URL, or using fictional marketing inventions. I recently had an example with someone who clearly was just leaving a comment on every blog that ever mentioned their special keyword 'newspaper subscriptions' - even if the context of the use of that keyword was totally different to the service they were trying to sell.

Remember, it is YOUR site

If people complain that you have violated their right to free speech if you do not publish their comments, they are wrong. They are perfectly free to set up their own website, link to your article, and then write whatever they want about it. But your blog is your space and your presence on the Internet. If you don't want to publish comments because they are offensive, pose a potential legal risk, or because you simply don't want to - that is your choice. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Once again, I turn to the example of Devious Diva's This Is Not My Country blog, with her fantastic exposition of her blog comment moderation policy:

If you think that sexism/racism/homophobia is over, do not comment.
If you have ten or less standard responses to sexism/racism/homophobia, do not comment.
If you cannot see anything beyond the colour of my skin or my gender. do not comment.
If you are going to call me by some demeaning endearment like cupcake, baby or darling, do not comment.
If you feel so threatened by me that you need to become a big-mouthed bully, do not comment.
If you feel compelled to write the same comment on many different blogs, do not comment.
If you have read 5% of what I actually wrote and made up the rest, do not comment.
If you get a kick out of putting people down, do not comment.
If you are going to go away and write a feeble, insulting post about me and then try and advertise it here, do not comment.
If you disagree with what I say but cannot cope with people responding, do not comment.

Tomorrow...

In the next part of this series, I'll be looking at how having a comment facility can help you defuse difficult situations when someone is complaining about the content on your blog.