There are two sides to Rule 3. I started out trying to keep my comments as open as possible; I even gave similar (Blogspot specific) advice during the first NBI. But shortly thereafter, my spam went through through the roof, and no anonymous commenter ever posted anything worthwhile. Silver lining: it's never been trolls, only commercial spam.
- Make sure your comment sections are functioning. Leave a test comment both as yourself and as a guest to kick the tires.
- Visit your comment sections on a phone to ensure that they’re legible.
- Requiring that I sign in with an account before leaving a comment is a significant barrier. If I can only leave a comment with a Disqus or social media account, I simply won’t bother. Sorry, but it’s just not worth trying to remember what name my social media account will use or sharing my personal information with yet another service.
I have opened it up on occasion since, including about a month ago while doing my SWTOR speeder contest. However, even with the spam filter on Blogger, I have spent a significant amount of time dealing with spam, both cleaning out the filter (hairball!) and catching what the filter misses (which honestly isn’t much). But Blogger allows for all sorts of login sources that most people I know are already logged into, assuming they are allowing cookies on their computers: Google, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, OpenID.
Having said all that, I understand if people don’t want to jump through hoops to comment. I resisted commenting through Disqus for the longest time, and still refuse to log into FB for the purpose of commenting elsewhere online. Just to test (once again) my spam filters, I am going to re-open IHTtS to anonymous commenting. Let's see how this goes.
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Since I removed all the obstacles from commenting on my blog (which is on Blogger) I haven't had any significant problems. On the other hand it didn't make an awful lot of difference to the number of comments I got.
ReplyDeleteAs a frequent commenter myself, though, if I see any blog using Disqus that's pretty much the end of any attempt to comment there. I have to be *really* determined to be heard to be doing with that abomination.
Agreed. However, (again thanks to cookies) once I logged in, Disqus still remembers me everywhere I go on my own computers. When I open up the blog, my spam folder fills up, but I don't get any more people than my regulars commenting.
DeleteDisqus is one of those things that can be so divisive. I personally love it: it stopped all of my spam issues dead in their tracks, it was super easy to just click a button to sign in with Twitter, and it gives me cool little notifications (back before WP was doing that with non WP.com blogs) to let me know I had replies on other people's blogs. Plus it was already a very common system being used in the lifestyle blogging scene, so I wasn't exactly breaking any barriers with it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you're right. It went against pretty much everything that pro-blogger or whoever will tell you do do when it comes to commenting. My aim is just to write stuff so out of this world amazing that people won't mind using disqus :P
Forgot to add that I had issues with spam because I was self hosted and too tight to pay for Askimet, which is why I liked Disqus. I tried Livefyre first and wanted to burn it to the ground :P
Delete"just click a button to sign in with Twitter,"
DeleteI think that's what finally made me relent, I'm permanently logged into Twitter, which makes it easy to comment on Disqus—and Livefyre, as well.
I love disqus so i don't see the negativity thrown at it. I have mine set up to allow anon posts so individuals who don't want to set it up don't have to.
ReplyDeleteI've just learned to "meh" strange comment systems. I much prefer name/email/url but if I have to use Blogger/Twitter/Disqus to comment, I've got them set up from many years of blogging and getting frustrated at being blocked from commenting.
ReplyDeleteAlso using Blogger, I have not had any issues with receiving any spam comments lately. I did had an issue way back when, but maybe it was before they improved their spam filters or something.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I see (and it's not necessarily a bad thing!) is that I need to work on setting up a better system for my email in connection to receiving comments and whatnot. Especially during a crazy month like Blaugust, my main inbox is getting flooded with all sorts of email about sending/receiving comments. I guess setting up alternate folders as a destination point for these kinds of emails would do the trick.
@ Ald and JaeJae: It's definitely become easier to use existing logins to comment through Disqus and other such systems. That's why I stopped resisting.
ReplyDelete@Zyngor One of the things that led me to re-open my comments is that, before, I would get notified by email for every comment, spam or legit. But after reading and commenting on Liore's post, I noticed I had a whole bunch of spam in my spam folder that Blogger had discreetly not notified me of (which is as it should be). So I opened it back up. :)
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