Okay, bloggers. What are you afraid of? Are you worried about spam getting through to your blog’s comments section? Yeah, I can understand that.
But you know what? I don’t moderate comments on my blog and not a lot of spam makes it through that Akismet filter that comes standard with WordPress. Hardly any, in fact.
I don’t know what your experience is, but for me, that Akismet spam blocker thingie does a pretty damn good job.
So if you’re blogging on WordPress, why do you still insist on moderating your comments? Are you concerned that someone is going to take issue with what you wrote in your post and give you a hard time? Are you worried about trolls? Bad language? Inappropriate comments? What?
Hey, that’s the world of blogging. Some people will really enjoy what you wrote, while others might take strong exception to it and let you know.
My previous blog was not on WordPress and it did not have any kind of integrated spam catcher application, so I would periodically receive what were clearly spam comments. I once received a comment that was full of links to porn sites, which I had to carefully check out in order to confirm just how inappropriate they were and that they deserved to be, um, moderated. That was exhausting.
So I changed my settings to require comment moderation and that pretty much took care of the problem. Except that I had to manually “approve” each and every comment.
When I started blogging again this past May, I chose WordPress and I set up my site to moderate comments.
What a freakin’ pain in the ass. I was receiving a bunch of emails from WordPress telling me that I had all these comments that I had to approve. It turned out that every one was legit.
When I realized that this Akismet thing works really well at catching spam, I changed my settings back to no moderation. And it’s been painless for me.
Maybe I wasn’t always thrilled with what some commenters wrote, but as I said, that’s blogging. I’m sure I’ve written comments on other bloggers’ posts that were not exactly all lovey-dovey.
But I have to tell you, fellow bloggers, when I comment on your blog and I see “Your comment is awaiting moderation,” it pisses me off, especially if I’ve commented previously on your blog and you ultimately approved that comment. Hey, it’s me. I’m back. Why are you still moderating me? Are you some kind of sadist?
I’m an instant gratification kind of a guy and I don’t like having to wait until you eventually find the time to read and approve my comments. I want to see my articulate, intelligent, witty, and worthwhile comments show up on your post immediately.
Listen, life is a bit of a crap shoot anyway. Learn to live a little. Take a slight risk (a very, very slight risk) and stop all that comment moderation crap. Just go with the flow.
And if you disagree with me, I might just have to delete your comment and block you!
This, That, and the Other 
i don’t have a clue how stuff goes into a moderation mode…I have open comments on every single post but every once in a while WP acts silly and throws comments into a waiting folder. It drives me crazy when it happens (mostly because I can not figure out how to prevent it).
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by the way…if it ever happens to you on my blog PLEASE let me know. at the very least I can slap my computer monitor and make us both feel better. lol
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Those damn monitors are always so overprotective, aren’t they?
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Personally my control freakery gene is freaking out at the thought of giving up on all comment moderation, but what the hell… maybe I should give it a try, and see what happens! 🙂
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Yeah! You only live once, right?
(Fine print: Fandango is not responsible for any inappropriate comments that may show up on your posts.)
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Sorry, but I keep ’em – always. Potential employers look you up in here, they see, and even if the comments aren’t yours, if they’re on your ‘face’ then you own ’em. And security – those spam thingies, those people who put in a million links – that slows my site down so much I have time to make a trip out to the coffee shop and get back in time to have to wait some more. Don’t get pissed off, consider yourself more of a risk-taker than me … and as I live in Australia, my time-scale is somewhat skewed against the northern hemisphere life.
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Akismet will automatically trap as potential spam comments with more than two links embedded in them. That said, I blog anonymously, so I don’t have to worry about prying employer eyes. Plus, I’m retired, so there’s that. But if you feel you must moderate comments, then you must. But if you’ve already approved a comment from someone, doesn’t that give you some assurance that such a commenter is not a spammer?
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I wish – but it doesn’t. the ‘professional’ spammers know about this and send a safe first, and then you get hit below the belt.
I have more than one site, the other without moderation (the one with the mask of a different persona and name) and it gets shat on all the time by the double-bangers.
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Hmm. Maybe I should rethink my position on comment moderation.
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I moderate a first comment if I’ve never gotten one from that particular blogger. More than half the time, it IS spam. Sometimes malicious spam. The way these weirdos work is to send something that might look normal, but if you check, they don’t have a site — it’s a blank site or a “address not found” … or some company that has nothing to do with the sender. Or outright links too trojans or viruses. Askimet does pretty well, but the spammers are getting more clever. Don’t get too comfortable about this. The scammers and spanners and malicious hackers don’t sleep and they are always coming up with new ways to get you. Not because you are worth anything to them.
They do it for FUN.
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Sheesh. Way to rain all over my sunny outlook, Marilyn.
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I’m with Marilyn.
I seldom leave comments if I have to fill out a form to do so, so I want it to be as easy as possible for folks to comment on my stuff. I always moderate a fist comment… and always check our their origin first. If in doubt, I’m afraid it goes to trash or spam.
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I’m with Sue, your first comment always comes in to be moderated but as you dear Sir have commented on my blog more than once you are now a free agent, so to speak, you comment, I see we are all happy. One blogger friend some time ago changed her settings to moderate every comment because she was being targeted by trolls so I understand her situation. If a comment looks dodgy I spam it immediately…
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I should count my blessings as I (crossing my fingers) have not had any problems with this kind of scammer spammer hacker stuff yet. That could be because nobody ever bothers to read the trash that I write. I do get some strange pingbacks which I think are ridiculous as they have no useless information in them and I take them as if someone is mocking me, so I trash them. I have deep respect for all of you, Michael, Marilyn, Sue, Cagedun and Fandango and I am sure that I can learn a lot from all of you. I have seen Suze comment on some posts before but I am not acquainted with her.
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You should read Sue’s blog, along with the others you mentioned, if you don’t already follow them.
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I meant Suze’s blog, as well as all the others.
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I moderate my comments. But I do it so I can receive notifications when someone writes me. Good, bad, or ugly, I allow comments to post. People are entitled to their opinions; I’d like to be able to comment and like them.
For me, blogging is like owning an open house. I like knowing when people stop by so I can bake them cookies.
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Can you erase my comments awaiting moderation
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Can anyone help me what too do if my comments is awaiting moderation
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