One thing I really like about Blogger, Wordpress, and some proprietary blog software is the name-links.
Commenters can choose to set up a link to their own blogs or other urls, thereby taking the opportunity to establish credibility and accountability.
A man or woman who stands behind his or her words with both name and credentials counts for a lot more than an anonymous commenter, or even the user of a consistent pseudonym.
But know this.
Any spammer, scammer, puppymiller, conspiracy theorist, or any other category of thief who comments here as a way of getting his name link "out there" and hawking his wares will find himself in spam hell and publicly called-out.
That is all.
Is this why your comments had to be moderated for a while?
ReplyDeleteVarious reasons. Sometimes there's a troublesome burst of commercial spam. Baseline, commercial spam tends to be targeted at popular old posts, which is why those are set for moderated comments. I've also gotten some leads on this & that from anonymous commenters who want to remain that way, and don't actually want their comments posted -- of course those are all thoroughly *verified* before I go anywhere with the information.
ReplyDeleteIf I have concerns that commenters might become het up, I will sometimes set for moderation, not to censor, but to give the option of a cool-down and reconsideration. I've gotten more than one "Don't let that one out!" request.
The clever idea that someone who puppymills a rare breed that has a small breed community can boost his sales figures and pretend to be a member of that community by posting a "nice" comment on blogs that sometimes feature that breed with a link back to his sales floor is, well, not so clever.
Thing about a small breed community is, we will catch it -- generally within about thirty seconds.
ReplyDeleteThe clever idea that someone who puppymills a rare breed that has a small breed community can boost his sales figures
You would not believe how many of those I get on an almost daily basis.
They leave a one line, inane comment, with a link titled something like "Lookit Our New Fernch Bull Dog Puppies 4 Sales!". One or two of them have been snippy with me for not letting their comments through. One even threatened me, saying I was stifling his "freedom of expression". I'd like to see *that* lawsuit.