Monday, March 15, 2010

Comments Policy

Ah well, I feel in need of a comments policy for the first time ever in four and a bit years of blogging. Being an out-of-the-way little backwater here has had its benefits.

I like comments, I welcome comments, but I've been having a drip-drip-drip of spamming of late. Sooooo, in the hope that said spammers will get the message:

  • I reserve the right to remove any comments I feel are inappropriate.
  • I am the arbiter of what is inappropriate.
(This does not include comments that disagree with me or put another perspective, because I like to think I am open to dialogue).

Things that will get your comments deleted are:
  • being abusive to me or other commenters (not happened yet, thankfully, but I'm trying to cover my bases). You may express yourself vigorously, but don't get personal.
  • being potentially libellous. I stand by what I write here (although will withdraw/apologise where I screw up), but you can't expect me to stand by what you write, particularly if you post anonymously. If you really need to libel someone, why not start your own blog?
  • being spam*, that's to say, comments that are simply links to your own blogs or sites and have no relevance whatsoever to whichever post you're commenting on. It's fine to have a link through your identity, but if your sole purpose in commenting appears to be to shill your own blog, that's very tedious of you. You're welcome to include links (to news stories etc that you think might interest me) if they have some relevance to things I might talk about here, or indeed to your own blog if you're a regular commenter**. (Although I can find your blog myself, if you're logged in). But please accompany any links with your reason for wanting to link.
If you have had a comment removed and think it wasn't spam or inappropriate and you want to have future comments left intact, you are welcome to present your case for why it wasn't spam or inappropriate - and I will take it under advisement.

Ta very much.


* Spam= being a couple of words that may or may not be relevant, (usually these are pretty generic and could apply to anything, ie. "It's super!") and then linking to your own site. You're not fooling anyone... And I will definitely delete such posts if they are a link to porn, semi-porn or sites that look like porn at first glance. This is not a sex-blog. If you're not getting enough traffic on your porn site, there must be better avenues to boost business that don't involve annoying me.

** Unless you're a regular spammer rather than commenter, in which case I will delete you with prejudice, haha.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to say I've never posted one word responses, I either have something to say or not! And that's annoying about links to porn, no wonder you've had to moderate comments a bit. I feel like moderating my Facebook at the moment, there are a couple of posters on there who just rub me up the wrong way and I'm tired of putting up with it. (Not you). Someone I offered help to on something, practical, and she hasn't even bothered herself to reply. I'd rather people just said "No" rather than leaving me hanging. Indifference is my Kryptonite.

Mephitis said...

Yes, it doesn't take much to acknowledge you at least.

The porn links are getting on my nerves, it just seems so - pointless? I can't imagine that most people dropping in here are after porn and it's so easy to find it if you want it. Is it really a good way of raising their site traffic?

Gopi said...

Scary!

ellie said...

Are most of spam comments done by auto thingie? I'm not very tech, so I'm just guessing.

Mephitis said...

Hi again Gopi, not afraid of the one-word answer there then ;) :D

Ellie, I don't know, are bots able to get past the word verification thingy? Or perhaps they're logged in and don't have to jump through that particular hoop? I'm not very techy either :D.

I'm reluctant to add more are-you-human type security cos I think it makes it a bit off-putting. It seems as though I can go from what I have now with Blogger, to limiting who can post and not a lot in between. :/

I could set up comment moderation, but I think on the whole I prefer to do clear-up. I'd probably forget to check whether I'd got any comments and they'd hang about in moderation limbo until everyone'd think their comments had been discarded :D!

I don't feel as frustrated about it since I had a moan, anyway. :)