How to handle negative comments

Great post timethief. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I would keep away from any site where there are nasty people commenting!
I have had a lot of nasty people on my blog and some who pretend to be nice by using polite words but actually keep attacking. I have no guilt feelings whatever in deleting their comments and/or reprimanding them, but I have no idea why there are so many bloggers who believe in this freedom to insult kind of thing. I even read a blog post where the writer said that on a free wordpress blog one has no right to delete comments…or something to that effect…but I don’t agree with it. Nasty comments completely ruin the spirit of the discussions. And I think one should let the blog owner to decide what is nasty. Anyway I would prefer fewer comments to have one troll and about 10 others responding to make up the comment count!

@Nita
Thanks for your support Nita. I’m appalled everyday by what I see passing as “civil conversation” under the banner of freedom of speech in the blogosphere. I have also had a couple of deletion calls to make recently too. One was a no substance comment and another was simply made for the purpose of link dropping. Last month I was dealing with a troll. My comments policy is founded on the hostess principle. I’m the hostess in both my home and my blog. What I would not tolerate in my home I will not tolerate in my blog. It’s always good to hear from you.
Best wishes for happy blogging. :)

I really like your closing remarks about learning how not to take offense. As a writer using a blog to post first drafts of essays and poems, I greatly value constructive criticism (and have a line to that effect right above the comment form); undeserved praise is actually a bigger danger from my perspective.

So far I haven’t had to institute a formal comments policy, but I don’t hestitate to delete the occasional inappropriate comment. To me, the unwritten code governing the behavior of guests and hosts in our society should be sufficient. If people mistake my front porch for a public square and start spouting offensive B.S., I don’t owe them any apology or explanation for throwing their a** off my porch.

Thanks for your support. I reached a point in my life about 10 years ago when I made the decision not to suffer fools gladly and not to negotiate with rude and abusive people. The best tactic is “failure to engage” because the reason they are submitting a nasty negative comment is to have a soapbox to rant from. When I get the occasional “you deleted my comment” backlash I usually respond by sending them the link to the youtube of the Eagles singing: “Get over it!”.

The last blogger who had her link dropping comment deleted from this blog posted her unhappiness with my choice to the Blog Catalog forum and then went over to the wp.com forum and posted a duplicate thread. In the former, she was deceptive and manipulative and, in the latter she had the audacity to characterize me as a Nazi. No kidding.

Hopefully your post will empower bloggers who are riding on the fence about what to do in these cases! Dissenting views can be enriching and educational, but when maliciousness, spam and other less-savory elements of the Blogosphere begin to creep in, it really can affect perceptions– and first impressions- about a blog and its content.

Cheers to you, TT. :)

I don’t get nearly enough comments to worry about any of this, timethief, and in more than a year I can’t remember receiving one that wasn’t polite and thoughtful (sometimes a bit self-serving, but that’s OK).

Your policies and attitudes all seem perfectly sane to me. I will adopt them the minute I need them. Thanks!

@romantic
Thanks for commenting. I always find your contributions to the forum to be thoughtful.
Best wishes :)

@davidbdale
Gosh I feel so guilty. I haven’t read your blog for months. I can’t say why that is. I guess it just fell through the cracks when I made up my rotation list. Anyway I just treated myself to reading two stories. You rock! I hope you will never need to have a comment policy.
Happy blogging :)

I moderate my own blog as well, and delete the ones which are flames only without a point. I’ve had a string of comments from one person who wrote a long rant and then kept spamming as to why his post says waiting for moderation. It was very annoying, so I just deleted them all.

Hi timethief,

Thanks a lot for sharing this. This post is great and quite helpful. ;) Really cool site, one cool site. ;)

~melisa

TT you are just SO SO SO good for me. You have a solid sense of boundaries and yet you are an open compassionate person. I love it and you! This is a great post and I agree! I have page on my blog with listed comment guidelines. I also approve all comments before they go up…unless I am away.

I haven’t had any problems on my personal blog “Teck~Line”
when the readers leave a comment they leave it in a respectful
manner on the other hand if I start to get bad comments I will
implement a comment policy but I figure that the readers know
what is expected of them in that matter..

On the other hand when I had my “Gaming News HQ” Blog
I had to implement a comment policy because I was always getting
nasty comments from gamers because they didn’t like what I had
to say about game etc… But I did allow there arguments if they were
respectful about it…

My point is that it depends on what kind of subjects you blog about
because it usually determines what kind of an readership community
you’re going to draw in being the blog admin…

@travelnooks
Good for you. It’s important for bloggers not to give their power away to bad mannered people and/or trolls. We put so much work into our blogs that it would be a shame if we let others ruin them.

Hi Melisa,
I’m glad you found the post to be helpful. :)

Yay! Robin. A comments guidelines are worthwhile. I read yours yesterday so thumbs up gal. It valuable to review all the boundaries before you have to deal with bad actors. Best wishes for happy blogging :)

@Teck
“My point is that it depends on what kind of subjects you blog about because it usually determines what kind of an readership community you’re going to draw in being the blog admin…”

Thanks for sharing this very valid observation. I dare say that determining who your readership community is likely to be comprised of is worth considering, for sure. It’s always good to hear from you.
Best wishes

Well said. I find it all depends on my mood. But hey, it’s my blog … my prerogative, lol. I find that quite often my regular commenters have it taken care of before I even know what’s going on, in which case I don’t delete it. Gotta luv good blogging friends.

Thank you for this useful information. I am in the midst of getting my own domain for my blog, and have been wondering just exactly what to do with the comments area. I want to have some control, yet have it feel free at the same time.. Does that make sense? lol I want it all! :)

You make a sound argument for comment moderation and preparation of your own comment policy . Many new bloggers shy away from the ‘red tape’ of moderation and let the few who may be inspired to comment do so with some immediate gratification. I’d like an option where the submission is added, but the blog owner i able to delete entries. That might be helpful while readership grows.

@drowseymonkey
You have a great blog community and I enjoy very much being part of it. We all get by with a little help from friends. Thanks for reading my post and for finding it valuable enough to comment on. :)

SBA
Bloggers already have the ability to set their blogs for auto-posting of comment or posting after moderation. And we also have the ability to delete any comments that are posted at any point time time. I have had open comment experiences where I have found spam and troll posts auto-posted to my blog so I not longer choose not to moderate comments. This means my readers who are all mature adults don’t get instant gratification but I’ve yet to hear them complain about it. Best wishes for your blogging. :)

K. Fields
I’m so glad to hear that you are getting a domain for your blog, I will look forward to seeing your content , especially the photography, nicely showcased in a theme that does your posts justice. It’s also good to hear that this post on comment policy was a timely one for you. I’ll be visiting your blog again soon. Best wishes in all you do. :)

Good tutorial on comments for those who are perplexed by the matter.

Thanks for your comliment. I have heard from a lot of bloggers on this issue, yourself included and I learned from them and shared what I learned. :)

Hello timethief, this is my first visit to your blog so I’ll just quickly say a BIG thank you for providing such a helpful, well written mine of information. I can’t wait to start reading back!

I’ve been toying with the idea of a comments policy as my traffic has grown recently and I’ve had one or two link droppers. I keep the comment if it’s good but always delete the link because it just feels so rude. I felt a little guilty about it at first, but no more!

A spam is a spam. Pure and irrelevant ‘link dropping’ and ‘diverting’ are indeed spam. I think, real people with real links and addresses should be go whatever they say (Relevant to your post of course). Real people have right to project themselves as fools, for everyone there to see, should that be their case. That’s democracy. Third party always knows better what is what.

I had been moderated out not a few times in political and religious blogsites. Like one that posted about greediness as the work of the devil. I was saying that selfishness and greed are animal characteristics. That animals like pigs, that have nothing to do with God and the Devil, also display such characteristics. And it was not cranky because I was serious about my point.

Sometimes serious points could come in joke-like manners. Anyway, surely you don’t mean something like personal likes and dislikes?

I think that those who are new to blogging have difficulties in making the call to delete a comment. The post I wrote was meant to empower bloggers and to clarify the points that they are not their blogs and that it is important to protect and preserve an healthy environment for meaningful dialog to take place. There will be times when bloggers will have to make the choice to delete a comment and that does not mean marking it as spam. I reserve the “spam” designation for those who are peddling flesh, drugs, etc.

thanks for your comment in my BC discussion. Thank you also for this nice blog post! very helpful!

You’re welcome. You have wonderful photos in your colorful blog. I like it. Best wishes for happy blogging. :)

I am adding you to my link, hehe. Thank again.

@kenebz
How kind of you. Thank you very much. :)

timethief,

Thank you.

Margaret

Hey there!

For the first time since I started blogging, I have just received a nasty comment. I tell you, I was really affected by it since it attacked my writing and my own preferences regarding a topic talked about on that commented blog post.

Actually, I have handled criticisms before and I can say that I can easily shrug them off and not be bothered by them. But this really recent comment affected me because, for the first time, someone attacked the way I write. Well, I write as a pastime, and I can say that I’m good enough to for my own blog. But for some reason, I doubted myself.

Which then prompted me to go over your blog and look for a post regarding nasty comments. And it’s a good thing I found the above post!

I can’t thank you enough for making this blog post ’cause it reassured me of my esteem. For a second there, I almost lost it. You’re right–you’re the author of your blog, you’re the one who decides what goes in and out; all to keep your inner piece intact. Yeah, there are trolls out there on the Internet, so I guess you just have to be sturdy enough to face them

Thanks very much!
Cheers!

Truly excellent. What a step toward sanity it would be if people elected to “deal with criticism independently”– well said! The Victim Mentality seems to be dragging us further down every day.

I also love your expression “taking responsibility for one’s own emotional health”– now there’s an empowering idea! Many of us should make it a mantra!!

Your counsel about not engaging nutcases and trolls is similar to an expression I heard recently: “not taking the bait.” Life serves up a lotta bait– and it’s a wise person who ignores it. Wish I’d been smart enough to realize that years ago.

Great post, thanks.