Moderated comments suck

I've stayed out of the recent Blogosphere mini-meltdown scandal over uncivil blog comments. To me, it seemed more like a family quarrel among siblings rather than a matter of global importance. A key fact that seems to be overlooked: most of the squablling was among A-listers. So, being a confirmed Z-lister, the matter is really of no concern to me. What is a concern of mine is that if for some reason I choose to comment on a high-profile blog, my comments, no matter how innocuous, must be "moderated" before being displayed. How annoying. In fact, it really sucks.

In truth, I currently do very little commenting on the blogs of others. In the early stages of my blogging "career" I did a lot of commenting, primarily simply to draw some attention to my own blogs. But now, I'd rather that people read my blogs because they found them via a web search or a feed search or otherwise found some reason to come read me.

When I do see something worth commenting on, my preference is to write my own blog post in response and simply link to the post I am commenting on. I think this is really the way to go. This is the good way to do conversations in the Blogosphere.

That said, I still welcome comments on my own blog posts. I do no moderating and even permit anaonymous comments, provided that you can pass the much-maligned and reviled Google/Blogger "eye test."

As far as why I felt the need write a post that comment moderation sucks, I did see a blog post I wanted to comment on last Friday. I intended to eventually turn that comment into my own post, but figured I could post the comment and then copy the comment to my own blog this weekend. So, I made the comment, was informed that it would be moderated, which I expected, but then I was surprised when I didn't see my comment a few hours later. Then, just a few minutes ago (more than two days after the original comment) I unexpectedly got an OOF email bounce AutoReply message from the blogger explaining that she would be OOF through Tuesday. How annoying. This is why moderation really sucks.

The annoying thing to me is that I considered this possibility and almost emailed the text of the comment to myself, but decided to take my chances with the moderation process. My mistake, compounded with a flawed process. Sigh.

I could try to recreate my comment, but I was so careful and crafted it in such an articulate manner, that it just wouldn't feel right to try to recreate it unless it really is lost.

Anyway, that taught me a lesson, and I will resolve to compose future comments offline and email them to myself before actually posting them. Even better, I'll strive to post my comments on my own blog and link to the original post so that I don't have to suffer through this vile process called "comment moderation."

Not that Google/Blogger's "eye test" is that much less humiliating and insulting.

-- Jack Krupansky