When Do You Approve Comments

After managing nearly 100 blogs in the last couple of years I’ve narrowed down blob comments to three types:

• Spam
• Legitimate Comments
• Well-meaning people with little to contribute

Almost all comments fall into one of these three categories. I always approve legitimate comments from real people. There’s no reason not to. I don’t always delete spam, but I usually do. I approve it only when the comment actually contributes to the thread and when I’m confident that my blog readers won’t be taken to a site that might harm them. They may be annoyed the sales message, but they won’t be harmed.

With well-meaning people, it’s difficult to know just when to approve the comments. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes a comment is just so off-the-mark that I treat it like spam.

Approving comments is something that comes from experience. The worst mistake a new blogger can make is to approve everything. Some comments are just plain harmful and they could lead to a diminished benefit to your users. Exercise some critical thinking here.