Summary: Many bloggers discover that some blog commenters have very different ideas about what is appropriate in a comment. Here’s what you need to know to develop a blog comment policy that lays the ground rules for comments.
Before You Start: You have a business blog.
Learning Level: 3 | Building Skills
Article Last Updated: Monday, 2 August 2010
What Is A Blog Comment Policy
Your blog comment policy explains what you expect of commenters.
If you read a lot of blogs, you know that blog comments are a critical part of each blog. And yet, blog comments are written by blog visitors and out of the control of the blogger. Or are they?
Large and well-established blogs have a formal blog comment policy that they publish and use to moderate blog comments. A comment policy tells the commenters what you expect from them, and what you will do if they don’t follow your rules.
Blog Comment Policy Components
While each blog’s comment policy reflects the opinions and experience of the blogger, they generally address the follow types of issues:
- Do you moderate comments?
- What will you do with off-topic comments?
- Do you allow profanities?
- How will you handle personal attacks and flame wars?
- Do you allow the comment to include links? Any limitation on the number of links?
- Do you allow commenters to put keywords in place of their name?
- Do you require a valid email address to make comment? How do you use that email address?
- What about obvious spelling, grammar, and other language mistakes?
- Do you allow commenters to add a signature with links at the end of their comments?
Blog Comment Policy Examples
Here are some comment policy examples you can use to inspire you to create your own comment policy.
When you allow people to add their comments to your blog, you create a place for conversation within your community. The conversation is on your blog. which means that you can set the ground rules for the conversation. A blog policy puts everything in writing for your community and lets them know what you expect of them. Over time, as new situations arise, you many need to update your comment policy.
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Great post, found it very helpful. We don’t currently have a policy in place, but it would be better to have one than wait until it’s needed. Proactive vs. Reactive right? Swear it’s my mantra for 2010.
Kaila S | Vertical Measures´s last blog ..Poetry Contest: Ode to SEO
Having a policy doesn’t stop people from breaking it, but it does give you a plan for dealing with exceptions when they come up. When you get yours completed, come back and link to it so everyone can see what you have done.