Preventing Comment Mistakes and Comment Moderation

Posted by scoop on November 30th, 2009 in Professional Blogging, Tips, Word Press |

Yesterday I recounted a story on how embarrassing an inappropriate comment can be. I then said that it should serve as a cautionary tale on being more careful about editing yourself when it comes to leaving comments. After all, especially as a professional blogger, you don’t want to end up tarnishing your hard earned reputation online merely by one comment that you didn’t think really think about.

Just an added warning: Don’t post comments in the heat of the moment. If you will be commenting on something controversial or simply disagree with a blogger or another commenter pause first and process things before you reply. First of all you don’t want to sound idiotic. Secondly you don’t want to sound unprofessional. Remember you can disagree without being argumentative. And third, you want to be persuasive and witty so that your comment will catch people’s attention (in a positive way) and hopefully end up in more traffic for you.

As a blogger, yesterday’s tale serves as a reminder for us to be more vigilant in moderating comments. If your blog is hosted by Blogger comment deletion is that big a problem since commenters can delete their own comments on their own (except for anonymous comments). If you are using Wordpress and don’t moderate comments (require author approval before publishing of comments) make sure you check in on your comment section regularly. You want to not only keep track of the discussion in your comment section but also clean it up. You should delete comments not only when asked by commenters but also when you see spam, and accidentally repeatedly published comments.