Mediation blog comment policies: Do you need one?

February 21, 2008 ·

mediation blog comment policy One feature that makes a blog a blog is the option for readers to leave comments on the articles. If you scroll down an article’s page on most blogs (if you’re reading a blog post via email, you’ll need to click on the article title to go to the associated web page), you’ll find the feature ready and waiting for you.

A few bloggers turn off that feature because they’re such big names the sheer volume of comments would be impossible to manage. Some bloggers turn off the feature because they’re afraid of the conflict that a comment might create. But most bloggers not only leave the feature on, we welcome reader comments and do what we can to encourage them.

That said, there are some cautionary notes:

It’s your blog and you get to set the framework for how its content is used.
Many bloggers find it’s important to moderate (that is, review before they’re published on the site) blog comments. There’s a ton of comment spam out there, for instance.
There’s also the occasional troll, so called because they try to hide their identities and leave deliberately nasty, belligerent, even threatening comments. Anyone who’s blogged successfully for any period of time has met a troll or two.
As more people use comments as a mini-marketing tool for themselves, some mis-use the opportunity with so much self-promotion they don’t really contribute to the conversation begun in the article. People differ in their opinions about whether this is ok or not, but I find it a turn-off. It’s the ol’ used car dealer version of self-marketing.

One way to benefit from the incredible opportunity created by comments on your blog without exposing yourself needlessly to the blogosphere’s underbelly is to publish and use a comment policy to guide your decisions about publishing or deep-sixing a comment.

Here’s Mediator Tech’s comment policy, which I wrote about six months ago and is always available for viewing from any page on my Mediator Tech site:

I welcome comments that add, dissent, support or otherwise expand the dialogue begun with my posts. But life’s short and this is, after all, a site belonging to a dispute resolution professional. So.

Comments are moderated and may not appear right away. I reserve the right to delete or edit comments if I deem them to be:

Anonymous. If you want to be taken seriously, have the fortitude to identify yourself.

Abusive or attacking.

Promoting hate of any kind.

Containing vulgar or excessively foul language.

Designed primarily to self-promote without really contributing to the conversation.

Spam.

I support the RespectPledge (click the image to learn more):

When I review comments and find one I think fits in the above list, I do one of two things. If the commenter has left legit contact information and isn’t a chronic abuser of my good will, I email them and invite them to tweak their post so that their opinion isn’t lost because of the way they delivered it. If the commenter has faked their contact info (yep, some cowards do), is someone who chronically plays games I’m too busy to engage, or has made such an egregious violation of my policy that it pains even my thick-skinned mediator sensibilities, I delete it or mark it as spam. Period. Done.

For additional articles and opinions about blog comments and policies, try these:

What do you think about blog comment policies? Share your thoughts in the article’s comment section.
Tammy
Copyright © 2008 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.