Do you have a blog comment policy?
Three years and one month ago, Darren Rowse drafted his ProBlogger Comments Policy which every blog owner should glance at now.
Like me and my blog, Darren enjoys people leaving comments on his. But he grew tired of the commenting system being abused, so he set rules to guard against spam, one-line comments, and irrelevant links; to support those who offer relevant links that others would enjoy; and to allow people to include blog signatures. Take a look.
Lorelle VanFossen of the Blog Herald wrote a guide to creating a blog comments policy last fall:
A Comments Policy is a statement defining your policy regarding comments on your blog. It is also a “responsibility statement”. It informs the reader of what you will allow on your blog, what you will not allow, and what they are allowed to do. It establishes publicly the responsibilities of each party involved.
Does your blog need one? Maybe. I think all blogs should have one. It helps to set down in words all the assumptions and expectations bloggers and commenters may have, removing all doubt. If doubt arises, the blogger can point to the ground rules, so there can be no excuses for ignorance. A comments policy says, “We are all playing by the same rules here.”
Taking a clue from Darren and Lorelle, in addition to a privacy policy of Mark Dykeman of Broadcasting Brain and another commenting policy of Jay Thompson of Phoenix Real Estate, I created mine.
Here is my new AriWriter content and comments policy or you can scroll up to the top of this page and click the respective tab.
I enjoy reading comments — but in the wake of recent comments that used different structures (and assorted emails I engaged in about why comments were written in such-and-such formats), I chose to put something in writing.
Before writing this post, I shared the policy with several people on Twitter and everyone appreciated it.
What do you think? Do you have a blog comments policy? Might you consider one?
Related posts:
- 1 Essential Plugin for Your Wordpress Blog
- How to Find One New Blog to Read Today
- Why I Unsubscribed From Every Blog
Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
978-558-0008
ConvoTrack
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 10 comments }
Coming at it from the perspective of a blogger for hire I always have put up a policy page. A typical example is on my site here: http://socialgumbo.com/legalese/
I also heartily advise http://www.disclosurepolicy.org for generating a quick transparency statement. As any of my clients can attest I heartily endorse full disclosure, it is essential in the age of Google and social media!
Loki´s last blog post..Your Google Profile: Tart It Up
Good stuff, Ari. Thanks for linking out to Broadcasting Brain!
Mark Dykeman´s last blog post..The value of an idea
I like your policy Ari – simple, and easy to read (mine’s too wordy). May need to revisit mine.
I think it’s important to have a policy. Yes, it’s your blog and you can do as you please with it, but letting others know how you’ll be managing comments helps everyone, blogger and commenter alike.
Jay Thompson´s last blog post..Sarah Cooper is a Fashion Queen!
I also like your comments policy. For me, it seems like the only people I don’t want to leave comments are the spammers, and their bots do not take the time to read policies anyway. Luckily, all of my other comments are relevant. Some granted are short, but I know several people who would shy away from leaving a comment if it had to be wordy, just because they express themselves very succinctly. But I will probably add a policy one day, if needed.
Kristi’s last blog post..Guilty Pleasures
I think that’s a brilliant idea. I wrote, The Comments Connundrum last year in which I discussed comment spam and what process I might use to decide whether or not to keep comments that were in a gray area. But I never went back and wrote up a proper policy. Kristi makes a good point in that the spammers won’t read it. But it could help others to provide more useful comments. Basically I just want people to write something that adds value to the discussion. It could be a question, an answer or just hypothetical musings, so long as it will be of interest to my other readers.
Heidi Cool´s last blog post..An URL by any other name would still work like an URL, part 2: length doesn’t matter
Kristi and Heidi, while bots don’t read policy documents, they do grasp robot-centric meta tags and text files.
Having a policy is always the best policy. I borrowed the Change.gov comment policy yesterday for my blog, with attribution.
Adriel Hampton´s last blog post..10 Cool Twitter People at GovLoop.com
Twitter Comment
RT @ariherzog Does your blog have a comments policy? Want to read why I think it’s a good idea? [link to post] #evergreen
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @ariherzog: Does your blog have a comments policy? Want to read why I think it’s a good idea? [link to post] #evergreen
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Pretty cool post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I have really liked reading your blog posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!
Comments on this entry are closed.