For the longest time I’ve held that the comments section should remain free because I believe that it is more effective in encouraging an open discussion, which is what blogging should be all about. I love getting comments because I see it as opportunities to understand diverse opinions. Some may feel differently as they do not welcome opposing views, finding that those who do give those opposing views offensive. For many times I’ve argued with Arbet, Ederic, and Jon on many different things, but I do not find them offensive because the arguments were presented against my arguments, not against my person. That’s just the big difference between arguing and quarreling.
But some people, apparently, fail to distinguish between the two.
I think the first time I’ve experienced that in my blog was when I posted about an actor’s daughter and her idiocy. Flamers left some rude comments in my shoutbox, perhaps afraid that they might be identified if they leave comments in the comments section. Other instances included:
- My post on Malu Fernandez
- My MLM posts (here and here)
- Coke’s Biggest Surprise post
As I’ve always said, those who leave the most scathing comments dare not identify themselves. I think it is mostly attributable to keyboard courage. While I do not outright condemn anonymity, it is certainly interesting how certain people would suddenly become rudely confrontational when their identities are hidden. In a way, anonymity allowed these people to be de-individualized and thus, acquiring certain traits that usually a collective body has (I think this is perfectly mirrored in the case of the Malu Fernandez phenomenon. People may disagree with me but I still do believe that there had been lynching involved in that case).
Also, it can also be noted that there are people who tend to read selectively. They read some parts of the post and when some words offend them, they automatically leave negative comments, oftentimes leading to disjointed and off-topic discussions. It can also be very tiring responding repeatedly to those who, either purposely or unintentionally, misreads the post. It is as if:
- they don’t understand what you’ve written, or
- they don’t WANT to understand what you’ve written
And so, because of all of that, I’ve decided to put the comments section of the blog in moderation. Some may disagree about enabling the comment moderation because it may discourage those who’d want to leave viable comments or that it may create a negative impression to your commenters. It may also slow down the exchange of comments as readers will have to wait for administrator’s approval before they could read new set of comments.
In my experience, those who honestly wanted to contribute to the discussion aren’t really discouraged by comment moderation as I know of several blogs with large readership and very active comments section who have been using it for a time. Moderation may not discourage all blog trolls but, at least, it can decrease their number. And, as for the flow of comments exchange, I don’t think it will affect this blog that much because I find that visitors do come on a regular basis. It will be another workload though, with the need to check the comments before it appears in the site, but I think, it will be for some benefit of the blog and the readers.
So, for the mean time, comments will be moderated. Let’s see what happens next.
How about you? What do you think about comments and moderating comments?
