Negative comments seem to be a fact of life on the internet.
They are everywhere, forums, on big corporate websites like the BBC and the Times and on people’s personal blogs. Where there’s an opinion, there normally seems be someone hanging around waiting to discredit it. Criticism is fine, but when someone starts harassing you, what do you do?
Thankfully, so far on my own blog, we haven’t had any outright abuse. I try to foster debate, but as the debate is normally as inane as what colour suit looks best, I wouldn’t expect this debate to turn nasty. And yet I’ve seen that, time and time again, on other people’s blogs it does. I’m not talking the ‘oh this is a silly idea’ comments either, I’m talking the full-blown ‘you are fat and ugly and I think your face is stupid’ ones. Here are my suggestions of few ways of dealing with it.
Have a commenting policy in place:
This could be a three page document about karma, or it could be a simple line above the commenting form. While this is obviously not foolproof, it might give you peace of mind when/if you delete comments or even ban specific commmenters later on.
Moderate comments:
Just stop them ever getting made public. This means you get to stop what shows up on your site, but it doesn’t stop you reading what some loon has to say. I’ve seen that a lot of people seem to do this, but it seems to me to be a lot of hassle for smaller blogs where you don’t really have a problem (yet).
Zero tolerance:
Any abuse gets deleted and if necessary the IP gets blocked. Seems extreme, but frankly I doubt you’d accept those sorts of comments from people ‘in real life’ so why should you have to on the net? Most ‘haters’ seem to be one offs, but it doesn’t really hurt to send the ‘get out and don’t come back’ message to people like that.
Allow no comments at all:
Now this one IS extreme, but possibly worth considering, especially if you’re the sensitive type or if the situation gets out of hand (a la gofugyourself). However, I know that for a lot of people, the feedback that commenting allows is a major factor in them blogging in the first place.
Good post. I’ve turned the moderation on briefly a couple of times due to malware/spam comments. I’d keep it on if I had to.
fantastic post, great tips there Im sure a lot of bloggers will find this helps them out
Great post! I recently had to turn on comment moderation due to some really nasty nasty comments from one name (but several IP addresses). I hated to do it after three years of free-flowing commentary, but it has made the blog yet again a nice place to be.
I have noticed it slowed down commenting a bit, but at least the comments are now about the blog, and not about the nasty anonymous commenters!
My policy is simple: my blog is my property, the same way my home is. If I wouldn’t let them walk into my home and say it to me, I won’t let them say it on my blog either, so while I’m happy for people to disagree, debate and discuss, if a comment includes name-calling or other personal abuse, it’s asking for a deletin’.
We also have a comment policy, which I think is really necessary, especially on a blog like ours, which contains pure opinion, which can be quite contentious. Thankfully, most commenters are lovely, though, and are able to disagree with me without getting abusive!
i usually say live and let die and just leave them up as no reaction would be the worst thing they would want, but sometimes things get weird. i had a continuous horrible commenter who just picked at things i said, and then she emailed me and said she was sorry if she was sometims said nasty things and that she wanted to send me a present… i didn’t reply, I don’t think giving my address out is the best idea! i don’t think you have already, but could you do a post on blogger safety? wendy b mentioned that Life of a Valley Girl was closed due to stalking just the other day. i’m just wondering whether revealing many things about yourself to the world, such as where you live, study, shop, eat, hang out and your schedual, is really safe, and when people contact you with, say, freebies r promos, is it ok to give out your address?
Since I got my first spam post, I decided to moderate comments and it’s been going well so far. I’ve gotten a few ‘not-completely-positive’ posts on my blog but that’s a part of building a community. Some people will agree and some will disagree, I just hope they keep coming back!
The nasty commentors always hide behind an Anonymous name too.
I had problems with a ‘hater’ and I blocked him!i don’t understand if a person doesn’t like you blog why does he read it and make nasty comments?
very usefull post!!
selinoolala makes some interesting points. I’m am seriously considering starting a shopping blog after being inspired by all of you, but I’m worried about the weirdos out there
A blogger safety post would be fantasic! Although I’m a careful person I’m sure that you with all your experience would mention something I haven’t thought of!
Hey!
Im a brazillian blogger and just discovered your blog throw stylebubble’s links.
Have to say I really liked it and read a looot os posts.
Im a blogger since july 2006, and aaaaalways had (and will have) bad coments on my blog.
People like to do it because they dont need to show their faces!
But its part of the deal. If you wanna expose yourself and like to get complements you’ll have to learn to not take the criticism too serious.
ANYWAYS,
Im gonna add this to my blogroll
http://www.garotasestupidas.com
This is a great post with valuable tips, but I think sometimes bloggers can go to the opposite extreme in moderating comments, resulting in censorship and overall bad netiquette. Case in point: I swapped links with someone who got the name of my blog wrong. When I left a comment pointing that out and asking for it to be corrected, my comment got deleted and my blog name on her blogroll is still wrong!
After reading this I think I’m going to write a commenting policy for my blog.
I also think it’d be cool to personally email the perpetrator and ask them how they are/if they have a problem. I think then they’ll see your concern and maybe think twice about posting negative comments.
My blog’s new but got its first anonymous bitchy comment last month. I had a completely open comment policy before that, and now I’ve just switched on the option where you have to be logged in to comment. I don’t want to have to moderate comments unless it’s really necessary, I like responses showing up immediately. I’m banking on the hope that if they have to provide a Google/Blogger identity they won’t think it’s worth their while to post nasty comments.
I’ve seen people talk about the bad comments they’ve had on their blogs but yet to experience it myself (just started so readership is still small). I’ve got a moderation system set up (even though I have very few comments!) because of the things I have read. I’d like to think that it won’t bother me when I get my first nasty comment (maybe it means I’ve arrived in the world of blogging?), but you can never tell. I think personal attacks on appearance are just madness though, and clearly a sign of the posters own insecurities.
great tips!!
hello im fashion blog come to me i will wait you goodby my blog:http://modagunlugu.blogcu.com
To be honest, I’ve stuck to an open comment policy because it creates a dialogue…. yes, ‘You’re fat and ugly’ comments are pointless but they don’t hide them behind an annonymous user on my blog and in fact are quite brazen about it…. therefore, i have no choide but to let them lie and just let them be…. gah…. could go on and on about the abuse both in comments/email I get… but anyhow… will ignore and push on…
I always wondered how you girls with open comment policy made it! I receive so many spam (and I mean hard-core-spam) per day, I’d have to just be cloned, me and my laptop and have my clone stand on the delete comments task all day long. I really don’t know how it works on blogspot (because I see the large majority of independent fashion blogger community is on blogspot) but on wordpress (like my blog) I have enabled comment moderation plus any comment with link gets instant moderation to prevent spam operators getting in.
I for one have a news-blog mostly. Haven;t gone public with my face (except the about page) but I imagine how hard it can be to receive harsh comments about your physical appearance. I somehow admire the girls who do that because they’ve got a lot of courage. Anyway, the bottom line is that you can’t stop malicious comments unless you block’em’all.. And that’s blocking the dialog with your readers too and I couldn’t do it, I love it when I receive feed back from my readers. Helps me go on and not feel so alone in the internet ocean.
K
Useful for me, thanks.
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