Have a blog? Then, you must know that it’s kind of like a 50-50 deal for both you and for your audience, and no matter how much you would like to keep the interaction one-sided – putting out content for the audience to see – that simply won’t do. You will need to engage with your audience, and it is for this reason, the ‘comment’ feature does best.
But it is not without its drawbacks – while there are encouraging comments on one side, there are harmful ones too – the ones that your blog needs to moderate.
If your blog is more of an open forum, that people to share their thoughts and ideas, chances are some of them will resort to anarchy, and which in turn, undo the freedom that you have allowed your audience.
That’s why, you as the blog owner should need to stay vigilant – using your sound judgment or take the help of automated plugins that will do the job for you by filtering out the harmful and negative comments.
So, what are the types of comments that you need to moderate? No, not all of them, but there are a few that will need to be moderated.
Spam
Who likes to deal with spammers when you can simply bar them from your blog?
If you are wondering what are the spammers – they are the ones that you will see in the comments commenting about how they earned an ‘X’ amount of money working an hour from their home, and most of the time, the links either lead to domains or websites that are laden with viruses.
They harm the credibility of your website, and your legitimate audience who gets fooled by the scammers, and the best way to deal with them is to download an anti-spam plugin, if you are using WordPress.
Trolls
Internet trolls and their comments thrive on negative publicity and attention and instead of engaging with them, and stooping to their level, here’s what you should do – deal with them like how you would do with the spammers. Okay, some of the trolls may be bots, but often, in most cases, the trolls are bored individuals who have nothing better to do than starting their digital war.
When it comes to trolls, you don’t have to look for them with a keen eye – you can and will easily spot them as their comments are mostly not related to anything and are scandalous.
But the thing is that some of the trolls will turn out to be legitimate users, and due to this, you won’t be able to deal with them as you do with spam – but worry not.
You are advised to take the help of a comment moderator plugin that will ensure you that any comment will have to go through your watchful eyes first, before being posted on to the blog so that your legitimate users don’t get hurt.
Impatient readers
Not all users turn out to be trolls – some will be readers who will be too impatient to go through your content, and they have simply resorted to the comment section to blurt out their feelings.
If that’s the case, promptly tell them their error and to ask them politely to view your content, and even then, they still carry on their ways without ever going through your content, and keep on posting abrasive comments, the best you can do is use a moderator plugin to handle them without wasting your valuable time.
Incomprehensible comments
Sometimes, it may so happen that there will be some comments in either broken language or in some incomprehensible language – in such cases, don’t delete them the moment you see them.
Instead, what you should do – you can ask them politely what they mean. If they are legitimate users, it might be just your luck, and your blog’s engagement rate will be increased, and if not, you can always delete them.
Promotions
Apart from spam, the ‘promotions’ comments are the problematic ones – and the thing is that they may not always be about products and services, some will be of bloggers who are just starting out, and they are simply starting out.
If you want to help them by showing a little fraternity, and community spirit, here’s what you should do – check out their website first, and if possible, even their website authority (trust us, you don’t want to get involved in anything suspicious).
Arguments
There’s one thing you should know – not all blogs invite harmful comments. You know, there are certain niches that attract certain kinds of people.
Take the example of a political blog – no matter how subdues your writing is, you will literally find no shortage of harmful or argumentative comments in your blog, even if your content doesn’t in any way incite arguments, confrontations or the like.
As it is your blog, the responsibility falls on you to make sure that your audience doesn’t get harmed in the comment section – after all, you are looking for a healthy blog, and so, it’s on you to make your blog’s ecosystem the right and healthy one, and which in turn, encourage positivity.
Destructive criticism
Forget your audience, even your blog authors (if there are multiple authors in a single blog) are not exempt from saying in the comments section. You will many comments from the blog’s authors in the comment section about certain changes, decisions, and even content on your website, and while, it will improve your blog, you will still need to go through their comments.
Just because they are blog authors, it doesn’t mean that they get free rein to say whatever they feel like in the comment section – in such cases, your best bet is to go for a censorship plugin that will filter all the unnecessary destructive criticism.
Threats
Threats are something that you shouldn’t disregard – hacking threats, establishment warnings, legal threats, and even death threats – all of them can take a toll on you and your blog.
In such cases, if you ever come across such comments, your next step of action should be to seek professional help to track the source of those comments.
When it comes to your blog, it’s not just you that need to be protected, but also your audience, who might get threatened in one way or the other. No matter what, it is your responsibility to watch out for the abrasive and harmful comments that might make your way to the blog.