How to make sure your comments get deleted
by Volker Weber
I had to delete a few comments again, so please let me repost the obvious.
- This site is free (as in free beer). Anybody can come in and read it.
- I do not require registration to read the site.
- Readers have the opportunity to publish comments.
- I do not require registration to publish on my site.
- I keep an audit trail of any such publication.
- I reserve the right to delete any such publication. The site is not free (as in free speech).
- I make some efforts to lock out abusive robots publishing on the site.
- I ask the commentator to leave a name. This is mandatory. If a commentator tries to publish anonymously, rule #6 is applied.
- I ask the commentator to leave an email address that I can reply to. This is mandatory. I never publish this address to protect the commentator from receiving spam.
- I give each commentator the opportunity to publish his site address. I automatically link to this site to make it convenient for the commentator to promote his site.
Rule #8 says "tries to" because posts are never anonymous. Some commentators found out the hard way. While anybody can leave false information, it should at least look reasonably correct, in an effort to not draw my curiosity.
Besides these 10 simple rules, I also ask for some respect. If a commentator leaves his full name or a unique nickname, I find this preferable. If the email address he leaves does not try to stick out a tongue to me, I find this preferable as well.
If a prospective commentator does not like these rules, he can remain a reader.
Comments
Sound like you're having the same trouble as J-Walk...
http://j-walkblog.com/blog/index/P15246/
Unfortunately I did not get any spamtool for MT up and running. Now I have to delete comments on a daily basis.
To be honest: it sucks!
Don't confuse cowardly anonymous posters with spammers. Spammers are much worse than the problem I am addressing here.
got your point.
Interesting. What about a comment that is on topic, but promoting a narrow view, linking to a site that is marginally offensive (it names 'bad' translators and quotes complete newspaper articles). This is a site I omitted from my links for that reason, and the blogger is using my comments to advertise the site, and I can't bring myself to delete the comments, but they irritate me.
Margaret, these rules are in now means a "law". I am the captain and stand above those rules. If I do not want to link so somebody else I do not link there.
In practical terms: If I consider a link inappropriate, I declare it as spam and MT will no longer accept any comments containing the URL.
Yes, of course. I didn't mean to suggest it was a law, it's just that I can't decide in this particular case.
