I edit if the comment reflected the subject of the post but url was deceiving, like a porn site but url reads homemadecookies.com… LOL

You should get an email notification telling you either way.

Thanks,

Lucy

@Christopher Hennis: Comment Nazi? haha. Yes, I can see you getting a lot of spam on that topic. For this blog, our most frequently spammed article is one that was written about PHPBB, a popular forum CMS (content management system).

And you know what, there has been people who requested to edit their comments if needed because of the disclaimer at the end ‘sori for i bad inglish’

My views:

For The Shameless Link – Normally I leave it if it is a link that a commentator send to share another thing which is related to what i have write. Now if a commenter come and put a link to a viagra website when I am talking about Obama… then for sure I simply SPAM his whole comment!

For the Keyword Marketer – Never got it till now

For the The Spammy Link – I usually visit the links a visitor provides if I don’t know the site already. If it is a spammy link but the comment is good i normally remove the link from his comment.

I also edit comment when at times some visitors put a related link but which is extremely long… such as photoshop api links etc and hence i put the link in html format using href –

And on my blog, there are some people who also come to swear at other people lol. Specially during the very hot post about defimedia. In these cases, I mark the foul words with ***.

Well nice discussion by the way.

@Kim: Well, that’s nice of you. I always feel really unintelligent when I realize that I’ve made an inexcusable spelling mistake.

I, like you, wouldn’t moderate them though. I think everyone deserves thier opinion and and sometimes a little controversy makes for some good comment conversation.

@Blog for Bloggers: Yes, I also find myself doing quite a bit of unlinking or deleting extra links that are placed within comments.

And one thing that I don’t do is censor comments. For example, I have some great comments where my writing skills or opinions were bashed, but they remain. I usually only edit to remove spam and “shameless plugs”.

Nice post

Jason Dower

As for the editing of comments, I hadn’t thought of certain responsibilities which might be incurred… Yes, many companies are protected from the actions of their visitors. So they could be held liable for any content that they edit.

And fortunately, I haven’t had any problems with people ‘faking’ their identities. But I do hear that this is indeed a big problem in certain industries. I don’t know about any privacy issues with outing people, but I am by no means the expert. Perhaps I’ll do some research, as you have raised quite a few interesting questions.

Thanks for your insightful comment. I am glad that you found our blog.

On corporate blogs, this can raise legal issues, especially securities law issues. The SEC says companies are not responsible for comments posted by third-parties, but there’s a question about the applicability of that if a company edits a comment. There are other laws that apply as well.

On my blog, which is not a corporate blog, I simply delete comments that I don’t like for whatever reason. Under my ethics as a former journalist, I used to feel strongly that all comments should appear, as long as they weren’t obvious spam.

But I have changed my opinion over time and now take a very active role in moderating comments. I never edit them, but I delete anything that does not provide value to my readers.

My biggest problem is vendors who post misinformation, or who fake their identities and then attack their competitors. These people are stupid and don’t realize that I have their IP addresses when they post comments. I would love to out them, but I think there are privacy issues with doing that. Or am I wrong?

Thanks for your thoughtful blog posts. I was turned on to it by Steve Rubel and have enjoyed the past week or so of posts.