January 5, 2011

Catching up on comment moderation.

If you comment on an older post — over 2 weeks old — or if Blogger thinks it's seeing spam, your comment won't go up until I moderate it. I need to do that every day, at least once, and it had slipped my mind. Sorry. Keep commenting. And feel free to prompt me by email if something seems to have fallen through the cracks. The moderation I'm doing is solely about blocking spam.

45 comments:

Trooper York said...
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Original Mike said...

"Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it. I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!"

Ann Althouse said...

"Wow. Comment moderation. That's a new thingy."

No, it's not, but the discussion on your blog today reminded me that I'd been forgetting about it over the holidays. What happens on my blog, with 10s of 1000s of old posts, is that bots put up ads and it's extremely hard for me to find them all. So I've set up a spam filter, and I approve everything that isn't spam. I also set the older posts, where the regular comments have almost always ended many days before, so I can see everything that is posted, because that's where spam Blogger is most likely to miss is going to show up. If I didn't do this, there would be a lot of clutter comments about where to buy term papers and Viagra and so forth.

There are a few types of comments that I delete, mainly ones that state facts about non-famous people who aren't here in the discussion, bad thread hijacks (especially in the first few comments), and people who come here to explain why I should be fired from my job.

If someone thinks a comment ought to be deleted, he can email me, and I'll decide what to do. Once I've decided, that's the end of it. Res judicata.

Trooper York said...
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Trooper York said...
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Original Mike said...

You rooting for the Packers this weekend, Trooper?

Ann Althouse said...

"I understand where you are coming from but I don't delete anything. I don't get as much spam as you do so that is not much of a problem. And I leave up personal insults and invective as I think of it as art form instead of a problem. But hey that's me."

Me too!

What do you do when the insults and invective are about the terrible problem of not deleting insults and invective? Leave it up, obviously, but as an "art form" it's pretty tedious. Much art is bad though. What are you going to do?

As for Titus, which the above paragraph doesn't refer to, he built up a great reputation for outrageousness, but it takes talent to walk that line.

Trooper York said...
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Trooper York said...
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Ann Althouse said...

"But the best defense is a good offense."

Not when people are "punching up" at me. I'm not going to let commenters drag me into debating their criticisms of me. It's not a good defense to magnify their offense. I'm not going to get into a fight with every commenter who takes a swipe at me. There would be no end to it, and this blog would go to hell.

Meade said...

Ha ha. Meade is amused.

Btw, Trooper, I've tried several times to put up a comment on your blog this morning but it keeps disappearing. Spam filter?

Ann Althouse said...

"Some of the gaurrelling in this blog is like a bunch of old codgers sitting on a park bench rubbing each others sores and picking off each others scabs. It can definitely get tedious but it is what some people live for."

Well, I was referring to your blog, whence some of my commenters retreat when they can't hack it here.

Ann Althouse said...

I mean whither!

Whither, not whence.

Onward!

Peter Hoh said...

Aha. That explains a mysterious disappearance.

Trooper York said...
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Original Mike said...

You can't want the Eagles to win, can you?

Ann Althouse said...

"I don't think that people retreat to my blog when they "can't hack it here." It is just a different sensibility. At least I hope it is. People who fight and bitch at each other here get along a lot better there. People as divers as Ritmo and hd and garage and DBQ and Hooiser Daddy and ricpic all hang out and don't sweat it as much as they do here. For whatever reason."

AKA can't hack it.

Unknown said...

If a thread's been quiet for an hour, except for a cafe, I usually pass on to the next, figuring nobody will see anything I type.

Have to agree with Troop about Titus - he can clog up with works with inanity - but it's your show.

You have to run it the way you see fit.

Trooper York said...
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Ann Althouse said...

"I will give you a personal example. I got into it quite a few times with hdhouse and we were both very nasty with each other. I didn't like what I was doing and took a break for a while. Then I came back with a clear head and now we post on each others blog and disagree but in a more cordial basis. I put the blame on myself because I took it too seriously. I was getting too het up about stuff. That can happen in the joy of internet warfare."

AKA can't hack it.

The Dude said...

It is always important to maintain an even strain when writing comments. Don't go overboard. Never write anything that you might regret later.

LOL - I can't even type that without laughing. Seriously - who am I kidding?

WV: ficinate - as needed.

Original Mike said...

"I want the Eagles to get in a plane crash."

That's what I figured.

Phil 314 said...

In the same vein as "If a tree falls in a forest..." I always wondered:

If you comment on a post more than a few days old does anyone see it?

Now I know the answer.

Professor you are the designated tree listener
In your honor

Phil 314 said...

Well it is a fine line and it is tough to be funny when mocking personal details about someones life.

Walking that fine line

(PS I don't think Johnny was a Giants fan...another reason to like him)

Trooper York said...
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madAsHell said...

Blogging....that takes time.
Moderating...is more time.
Teaching....at a state supported school.

Where do you find the time??

Is blogging considered scholarship?

Of course, I'm commenting from a company owned computer....but I can be fired!!

Trooper York said...
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SBVOR said...

Ann,

There is a far easier way to monitor/moderate comments.

From your dashboard, click the "Comments" tab. That displays every comment, starting with the most recent, no matter which post the comment was left on.

Using this tool, you can eliminate all comment moderation and still monitor/moderate every comment. Between that tool and the automatic spam detection, I have been able to eliminate comment moderation as well as the word verification.

former law student said...

Good to know that a certain comment I made had not broken a house rule.

Ann Althouse said...

"There is a far easier way to monitor/moderate comments...."

That might be good for you, but how many comments a day do you have? I have 100s per day. And the spam tends to come in overnight, when I'm not looking. I'd have to be checking that page hourly. It's not that I'm not aware of that function. It's that it's unworkable for me.

I could also check through my gmail. All comments are gmailed to me. I used to use that method, but it took an insane amount of time.

SBVOR said...

Ann (1/5/11 4:14 PM),

Whatever works for you...

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

"Hack" what?

(Maybe that verb was intentional). ;-)

If people are more argumentative in one setting than they are in another, what is there "not" to hack? A pretension of courtesy?

I try to be courteous to anyone I disagree with who also cares to be reasonable and open to a point not their own. If they can't "hack" that, then I give them performance art. I'm sure I sometimes resort to performance art before exhausting a "testing period" in tense moments, but nobody's perfect.

Extending courtesy on the basis of being reasonable and open to others' views seems to be a standard of success in the larger blogosphere.

Anyway, I found the dialog between you and Trooper pretty interesting.

wv: bilate. I came bilate and just picked up at the ending snippets of this thread.

Ralph L said...

AKA can't hack it.
Or don't want to.
See the definition of insanity.
Some of these threads can get really tiresome.

Titus said...

Who's AKA?

Trooper York said...
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Ralph L said...

Also Known As