Valhalla Island

There was an argument yesterday about testimonials being put into a moderation queue at iheart.milkcartondesigns.com. The argument then moved onto blog comments, how spam and just general idiots should be dealt with. If you want comments and have a strong, automatic spam fighter such as Akismet I see only one option.

Let users publish comments freely. If, after it’s been published, you are unhappy with the comment, whether it’s spam, it’s off topic, derogatory or whatever, then delete it.

I don’t believe in the moderation queue method. The beauty of the weblog, the beauty of the new web is that it’s two way, most of the time you’re able to reply to what you read. Being able to reply and have it instantly published for anyone to see is a satisfying feeling. Having every comment, questionable or not pushed to a holding area awaiting your golden touch of approval is not showing faith in your users while taking value away from legitimate users.

It’s almost synonymous with DRM in downloadable music. The music industry lessens the experience for millions of paying customers with super restrictive DRM because they’re afraid some people will illegally copy the music.

In Joey’s case on iheart.milkcartondesigns.com his concern was primarily malicious code and that’s why a moderation queue was implemented. The kses sanitisation function is extremely good at catching malicious code and is easy to implement. Joey’s argument was that it wasn’t worth it for such a small application. The way I see it Joey’s view is backwards, moderation in such a small application isn’t worth it.

Another concern was nasty people just posting nasty comments - something that can’t be defended against with programming. Moderation for this reason is a huge lack of faith. Do you refuse to speak to people for fear they’ll say something offensive?

Take the risk, keep the process a smooth and rewarding one for your genuine users with something nice to say. You’re much better off spending time looking after your quality users than protecting yourself against the malicious ones.