As I considered the nature of this blog, I was immediately confronted with the big question for anyone who ventures into the “read-write Web” and its ability to allow others to write to your Web pages: to what degree should I allow annotation in the form of comments to my blog posts?
The first word that comes to mind is “moderation” – not so much a statement of degree, but rather control – in this case of the posted comments by those who visit this blog. This term has a long history in the relatively short history of the Internet. Think moderators and moderated posts in newsgroups, e-mail lists, and later in their Web-based kin (bulletin-boards and discussion forums).
Let me say that I welcome the ideas of others and know that this would merely be a useless exercise in self-reflection or self-promotion without that dialog. However, having opened up discussion in several areas of my Web site over the years, I have learned what moderation (of discussion) means in practical terms.
For example, on my Palimpsest article, there once was unrestricted access to posting comments in an “Idea Post” bulletin-board, but it became bombarded with spam and links to porno sites. I had quickly discovered how chaotic and sometimes offensive un-moderated posting can be to the unaware, so I restricted it with password-protection access. This lowered the flow of posts, so it was not an ideal solution. However, now I can use a category of posts in this blog (Palimpsest) to fit each topic in that article and allow for less restricted access to posting comments again.
For this blog, I have opted for moderating comments before they are posted to the blog, but not requesting blog registration (i.e., initially providing a name and email address to which a login password is sent).
Is this reasonable? I can only say that for now, it seems that way to me, but I am open to ideas on how to balance convenient access and freedom to “publish” comments with the more negative outcomes that I have described. I believe that is why I used the word “specter” in my subject for this post. I have an un-easy sense of compromise in my initial position on this issue.
Thus, I welcome your comments on the issue in this post and on any ideas you would like to share on the theme of this site.
Doc,
I think you are using a sensible approach. The idea of a blog is to solicit ideas, encourage thinking ‘outside the box’ and innovation. Because I am inexperienced in the blog world, I did not even consider that the blog could be littered with such rubbish, rendering it useless.
It seems that having some control by previewing before publishing is a positive way to maintain a useable environment. Thanks for sharing your approach.
Thanks for your comments Catt. My experience on the Palimpsest site was with the unmoderated use of Web-based bulletin board (discussion forum) software, but it could as easily been the situation with unmoderated use of blog software. That’s why I started this blog with opting for the moderating feature (by requiring an approval step before comments are published), but not going as far as requiring users to first register (and get approval as members) before being able to blog. That latter option was what I used to correct the problem with the bulletin board spamming, but it really cut down the flow of discussion, so this seems to be a reasonable compromise (so far at least).
I am not sure about the experience of other bloggers who maintain their blogs, but I am encountering the spectre I have related to moderation: unwanted spam in the form of comments to this blog.
I wonder – do (other) bloggers with their own hosted blog software get awashed in a sea of unwanted comments (spam) and find that due to the overflow of spam, they have to turn off the email notification of comments to keep their email in-box afloat?
Regretfully, I have chosen this action for lack of a better way to handle spam. This is similar to the problems I experienced with the use of online discussion forums, but not quite the dead-end I experienced with keeping them open (without moderation or registration).
Using the moderation option, I can still allow comments to be posted without need for prior registration and approval, but now I have to scan through a sea of spam in the administrative section of my blog software to disallow them while trying to spot reasonable comments that actually address issues in the thread of discussion (and don’t point to a porno or phishing site).
Alas, the specter lurks again, but for now I am resolved to find ways to find reasonable moderation in the flow of information and not lose comments that further discussion here.
Wish me luck.
I welcome your comments – no spam please 😉
Doc