Experiments & Expressions

I know I’m not the only one. Comment spam is frustrating people all across the blogoshpere. I moderate comments and have even gone through the hoops of using great plugins such as Akismet, Bad Behavior, Comments Post Rewriter, and Spam Karma 2.

Unfortunately, the issue has nothing to do with the amount of comment spam that gets posted on the site. The real issue is my data transfer threshold. The combination of heavy server beatings that slow site access and obscene data amounts that get pumped through each day is too cost prohibitive. Just to give you an idea, I burn through 6GB of transfered data when spammers attack. Multiply that by once every 2-3 days. Oh how I hate these guys.

I’m pleased that I do not have spam on my site, but what’s the point when comment spammers prevent a site from working. Obviously it doesn’t take much brains to be a spammer.

What to do?

Well, I’m pretty sure that Emily Post has never written a blogging etiquette book, but there are definitely a number of written and unwritten rules. One unwritten rule that I would like to see more in practice is the etiquette of updating post content.

I haven’t seen it written, yet. But I highly doubt that I’m the first to talk about updating content with regards to blogging etiquette. So if you find other support for this, I’d be grateful.

So here’s the rule (at least the one that I bend now and then)…

When you publish a post, it’s written in stone.

If you have something minor like typos, I think it’s completely fair and appropriate to make corrections. However, if you need to make other changes or corrections, here’s how you can deal with it.

1. Write a new post.
2. Clearly mark your change/addition.
3. Both 1 and 2.

Write a new post

Sometimes, but not always, it makes sense to provide a follow-up post. When your readers are presented posts in the standard reverse-chronological order (like in most blogs), your corrected post will appear at the top of your blog giving readers the opportunity to read your corrections. If you simply changed your post, your readers may not know that a change was made. So write a new post.

Clearly mark your change/addition

If you change something within a post, it helps to identify the change that you made. People may return to a post. They may have been notified of new comments or maybe your update. When they return, how do they know what was modified? It helps tremendously when people use strikeouts to show deleted lines or type “UPDATE: ” to precede blocks of text that were added.

Be sure to follow the same principles for editting comments too. Once an edit is made, the comments may not make sense. Marking your changes can keep things clear.

Both 1 and 2

Using both of the methods can help, too. It can allow good crosslinking of your posts while allowing readers to better understand your train of thought.

Just Suggestions

Now, these “rules” are really just suggestions. Their implementation depends a lot on the situational circumstances of modifying a post. However, they are good guidelines that can help to improve our blogs.

By the way, if you know of any good blogging etiquette resources please comment with the link(s) below. This can benefit us all.

[Previously posted on ActiveRain]

Are you a victim of a splogger? Maybe a spinger? Got comment spam?

Here are a few ways that you can fight back. Please share if you have other ideas!

• Install quality anti-spam plugins to your blog
• Enable comment moderation
• Ask to be removed from their feeds
• Add the culprit to SplogSpot, a listing of spam blogs, ad blogs, link farms, and more.
• Report them via SplogReporter, Blogger, AdSense, or InterNIC as appropriate.

Well it looks like I’m signing up for yet another service, coComment. coComment is a comment management application (yep another web2.0 app) to help you track where you’ve commented.

I’ve tried in the past but thought it was rather limiting and impractical. However, Jim mentions that there have been some great upgrades. In addition to helping you to remember where you commented, coComment can also do things like:

• Notify you of follow-up comments
• Syndicate your comments (i.e. place all of them on your site)
• Comment on regular websites that don’t allow commenting

Check it out and let me know how it works for you.