February 27, 2005

Comment Policy

Filed under “What's New” and “Blogging”
by Adam at 3:02 PM

Permalink :: 4 Comments

Image: a can of Spam with a red circle around it an a line through it, in the style of a "No Smoking" sign

As a result of the growing comment spam problem, I’ve had to start taking a hard line against commercial content in my comments. So far I’ve been doing this according to a set of rules that I hadn’t bothered to write down anywhere, but that’s changing as of today. I’m going to supply a link to this post at the top of the comment form, so everyone should be clear on what the rules are.

This action was prompted by a comment posted today, which was on-topic and friendly in tone but clearly advertised a piece of software that the commenter was selling. I realize that this is a real gray area, so I e-mailed the commenter to tell him why I was deleting his remarks.

Here is my message to that commenter, which will serve as a statement of policy and case-in-point for future comments:

[name withheld],

Since your comment was advertising a product of yours, I’ve deleted it from my weblog as excessively spammy. Your intention may have been merely to be helpful, but the unending flood of comment spam has forced me to take a hard line against commercial messages in my comments.

My informal comment policy — which I’ll be posting someplace obvious on my weblog as soon as I get the time — has been as follows:

  1. Comments obviously advertising a product to which the commenter is linked will likely be considered spam.
  2. Commenters who enter a commercial or sales-oriented web site as their URL in the comment form will are likely to be considered spammers.
  3. I use the word “likely” in these rules because the decision is ultimately up to me, and that decision is final.
  4. Any off-topic, hostile, overly vulgar, or trolling comments are fodder for immediate deletion.

I do appreciate you stopping by my blog. I want you to know that you are welcome to return and make additional comments, provided that they are in keeping with the policy described above. Additional comments in violation of the policy will result in your domain name and / or IP address being added to my blacklist.

Regards,
Adam Messinger

I ask that all my visitors please keep these simple guidelines in mind as they compose their comments. Thanks.