Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Remembering to Put Out the Welcome Mat on Day 12

May 12, 2008 at 11:02 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, comment08 |
Tags: 31 Day Comment Challenge, co.mments, comment08, Education Blogging, Education Blogs, Moderating Comments, Welcome

Silvia’s frustration with trying to post a message on my blog early in the challenge was voiced in her blog Allow Others to Comment… Make it as Easy as You Can.

I suddenly realized that I needed to put out a Welcome Mat for a blog and hadn’t done one for this blog.

This is what I posted in response.

Thanks for pointing out the problems in trying to post comments on the Rumination’s Blog. I hadn’t really thought about it when I was setting up the on / off switches in the blog panel.
I did a bit of investigation and changed the switch, so hopefully now people can post more easily. Add another one to the learning process.

Apologies for your frustrations.

I am discovering many differences between creating and hosting a blog that are very different from what I have been doing for the past 10 years with creating and hosting an informative website. Another one of those differences is in moderating comments.

Moderating Comments

Sue Water’s post on Are Your Comment Settings Making It Harder For Readers To Comment? got me thinking. I really started ruminating when she voiced the opinion on moderating comments that “my personal belief is it’s better not to moderate comments” and started to figure out why I moderate comments.

Reflections on Moderating Comments

I am beginning to realize that there may be different blogging rules for different sites. I’ve had positive experiences with my edublogs account (only a few months old). I can’t say the same with my blogger blog accounts or with my personal website.

As I’d posted already on Day 9 of the challenge several of the comments that I’ve received the NICU Parent Support Blog (a blogger account) fell prey to some spam bloggers who posted pornographic links (not the best thing for NICU Parents to see). At the time I didn’t have comment moderations on, so I had to go in delete the post and republish it, this time with comment moderation on.

With my personal website, Journey of Hearts, over the years I have received long email messages with stories of grief and loss, when we had the guest book and forum, some of these messages ended up there. I took down the guest book several years ago, when we changed servers and never got around to reestablishing it.

My other main experience with messages is within Squidoo. There are many lenses where people leave comments more along the lines of Blog Junk and the comments have nothing to do with the topic, blog spam.

I realized for me, having to moderate comments is my reminder to check for and read comments; moderating is a way of ensuring that I will remember to read comments.

Day 12: Make Sure Your Blog Technology is “Comment Friendly”

The task for today was making sure “your blog more “comment-friendly” by doing an audit of your blog for how it invites comments and by developing a comment policy.”

I’d already had to adjust my comment moderation in the edublog this earlier in the challenge.

Accomplishments for Day 12

1. Previously adjusting my blog to make it easier for commenters to post comments.

2. Reflecting on why I moderate comments.

3. Discovering that I still am fearful of spam infiltrating blogs etc.

4. Learning more about the differences between blogs and websites.

5. Writing and Posting this Blog Post.

Reflections on Day 12

Thankfully I had already had to adjust my blog earlier in the challenge because my blog settings created some frustration for people.

I’ve also noticed that my continued blog settings to approve messages prior to having them displayed on the blog has caused frustration to some blog commentors in this challenge.

Revelations

I realized for me, having to moderate comments is my reminder to check for and read comments; moderating is a way of ensuring that I will remember to read comments.

Image Source: Billy Alexander. Welcome Mat. Royalty Free Use.

This blog post is part of The Comment Challenge, comment08.