Comment Moderation | Bent Corner

I still hate comment moderation

I blogged once before about how much I hate it when bloggers ask readers to leave a comment and then after the reader takes the time to write a comment, the comment is withheld from being posted until the blogger gets a chance to first “approve” the comment.

It smacks of micromanaging and I hate it.

Early yesterday morning I tried to leave a comment over at Lifehacker. It was concerning a post about using cat litter to de-stink dirty, smelly shoes. Personally I thought it was a stupid piece of advice. If your shoes are smelling badly, I don’t think cat liter will fix the problem. If cat liter was really so magical, why do most cat boxes smell like cat urine and/or cat fices unless you clean them on a very regular basis? Smelly shoes are a sign that your feet have produced a ripe environment for bacteria to flourish.

Cat liter wont fix that problem.

Anyway, I tried to leave a quick comment, but after submitting my comment, I was told that my comment must fist be “approved”. If I had known that beforehand, I wouldn’t have bothered leaving a comment.

And that’s the thing that bothers me the most about blogs that resort to using comment moderation. They tend to keep the fact that someone must fist approve comments before they show up, a secret. The result is that if you read through the comments, you tend to think people are reacting in a way that very well might not be the way most people are reacting.

It’s dishonest.

Comment moderation is for asshats

If there is one thing I hope 2008 brings is an end to comment moderation. You read an interesting blog post and you decide to leave a comment. You put your thoughts down in the most coherent way that you can, making sure your grammar is correct and your spelling is right. You then type in the series of fuzzy letters and numbers appearing on the screen to prove that you are not a robot. Why is it that a robot can be programed to drive around on the surface of Mars and send back photos but it can’t be programed to type “er57z” when it appears on the screen?

You then press Enter and wait for your comment to appear. Instead of seeing the comment you just posted, you see a message that says something like this:

Your comment has been submitted and will be viewable once it is approved

Why must my comment be approved? I typed in the short string of fuzzy numbers and letters proving that I was not a robot. Why then do I have to have my comment approved?

I just don’t see the point. Why do some bloggers do this? What are they afraid people are going to say? Are they worried that they are going to be called a derogatory name or that a disparaging thing is going to be said about their blog? If so, it’s time to grow up. Stop being such a pussy. Either let people leave comments or don’t. Don’t insist on micromanaging each little thing someone has to say. It’s pathetic.

The thing I hate the most about bloggers that insist on approving comments is that they never inform you ahead of time that they will need to approve your comment. They could save everyone a whole bunch of time by letting that fact be known ahead of time. Not only do I not what to leave a comment if it must first be approved, I don’t want to read comments left by other readers. If the comment section doesn’t truly reflect what other readers are thinking, I don’t want to waste my time reading it.

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