New Comment Policy
Thursday, May 12, 2005
I have recently closed a couple of old posts to comments and will gradually close all posts to comments after a time window of something like two weeks. This is a change I've been planning for awhile. I announce it now because I have finally started the process.
The plan is to close and hide comments for posts with no comments and to close, but keep available, comments to all others. Blogger requires me to republish a post to make this kind of change. However, I will not annotate this as an update.
-- CAV
3 comments:
Whew, I made it...!
Okay, now for the comment:
I've read, here and there, that closing comments actually prevents spamming of old posts, which can accumulate without your noticing--although, come to think of it, aren't all comments e-mailed to the blog owner? Well, some nutcase can spam a large number all at once, I suppose.
I still get hits to posts in my archives, referred by search engines, so I've lately been considering a way to move those posts up to the front page whenever a comment is left. I'm always curious to know what someone might have to say on something I've written, even if the entry's old. (Exceptions: spammers, trolls, etc.) I recently received a trackback for an old post--a fairly trivial post--but I left it.
Hmmm...
Good! A comment! A post about comments should certainly draw comments! Heh! You raise some interesting issues and I'm waiting on articles to download, so I'll address them.
(1) On comment spam. I believe I saw something about that on Alan Sullivan's blog. I think Blogger makes that impossible, but I don't recall exactly how and don't see, offhand, how that could be foolproof anyway. So far, no problem with that there, but why wait and find out? And then nutcases are another issue. In fact, that is equivalent in result to the comment spam block not being foolproof.
(2) On hits to old posts. I frequently get hits to old posts, but have never gotten a comment on a post older than about a month that wasn't a drive-by flame. I think the folks who frequent blogs tend to be looking for newer subjects and might figure that there won't be much discussion even if they choose to comment. (Regular readers will be on the default page, for example, and not rooting through the archives. They won't have any idea that a new commment was made, an issue you seem to be taking into consideration for your own blog.) My contact information is there for them to email me if they wish.
I will have to update my FAQ to reflect the new policy sooner or later. I may offer there to open up old posts for comments if there is sufficient interest on the part of some readers and sufficient time for me.
3. (Gratuitous bonus material.) One round of closures/scraping up of moonbat droppings will be a pain in the rear, but I'll divide it up into several sesions. Ultimately, it will save me the time of having to figure out where the droppings are. This is sometimes hard for reasons a moment's thought by a non-moonbat will reveal.
-- Gus
Great Tip! Thanks!
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