As you know, i removed the ‘no follow’ tag from all comments so that google will follow the websites of those who comment here. I also list the top commentators with a link on every page.
Whilst browsing through other blogs recently i have noticed that a lot of bloggers are abusing the top commentators add on which made me think ‘Is there a way to reward good commentators and not bad ones?’
How are they abusing it?
Well from an ethical point of view i consider them to be abusing it. I’ve found a lot of blogs who have someone in the top commentating list who got there by leaving numerous one line comments. Most of these comments were short, pointless and some of the time even completely irrelevant to the article that it was posted on. However, the commentator had succeeded in getting into the top commentator list for the blog. When you consider these lists are on most blog pages etc you can see the incentive for someone to try and get on the top list.
Like most blog owners, i really value my commentators and i wanna reward them for contributing. I for one value quality over quantity but obviously it’s not always easy to differentiate between the two. However, i do not want to see one line commenators being list as the top commentators over people who leave good well thought out responses. Let me clarify, i dont mind one lin responses at all, I just don’t like commentators who leave pointless one line replies all the time in an attempt to get some cheap traffic.
What can a blog owner do is someone is trying to sneak into the top commentators list? What options do they have?
What can the blog owner do?
First off, i dont have all the answers and I don’t think this is a major problem for all blogs though i am sure that most blogs will come across a commentator who is leaving many bad comments at one point in their blogs life and they will not be best pleased about it.
Secondly, i remind you that im referring to commentators who consistently leave poor comments in the hope they will get on your top commentators list.
As it stands just now the only things i can think of is to :
* Delete the comment
or
* Mark such comments as spam (favourable)
or
* Mark such comments as spam (favourable)
Im not a huge fan of deleting comments unless the post is abusive, racist or using affiliate/advertising codes. Therefore i believe marking the comments as spam is a good idea as your spam protector (eg. Akismet Spam) should recognise the ip next time.
It would be good to see a top commentators add-on/plugin which put some emphasis on the ‘Best Commentators’ rather than the top ones. Perhaps it could take into consideration the length of a reply – im not suggesting this couldnt be cheated as well but im sure it would scare off potential commentators who are trying to scam their way to the top as well as making it more obvious what they are going to do.
Has anyone here been frustrated with the uality of comments from some posters and do you suspect they are commentating simply to get links to their site?
