[ Irish KC ]
Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

To clear up a few things, I want to talk about posting comments here on Irish KC, and then I will link to this from relevant places, and update if necessary.

I don’t really like comment policies, and yesterday there were 27 comments posted on Irish KC, so what follows is mostly theory that will only be applied in very rare circumstances if necessary.

Since Irish KC implemented its new design - with my mug all over it - in November 2006, I have stopped over 45,000 comments from being posted.

All of them, bar one, were spam, and it was me that did the stopping not an anti-spam tool. I had tried to implement Akismet, the most highly regarded of the anti-spam tools for WordPress, so you could post without me having to moderate but not alone could I not get it to work (it stopped all comments), but the backing out of it caused great problems for 3 days.

And that’s why I moderate all comments. To fight spam. Not because I don’t like you, don’t agree with you, or because you won’t let my dog poop in your garden.

There are 2 ways I stop comments from being published:

1. I maintain a blacklist of words. Most words are pharmaceutical, but due to the sheer volume of spam I have had to unhappily include such words as “Google”, “Pharmacy” and “creditcard” (one word). If you use those or any of the other blacklisted words your post will just evaporate, you’ll see nothing posted, and I’ll receive no notification.

If your comment does not go up, you get the form blanked and thrown back at you, and no message that your comment is being held for moderation, then consider emailing it to me letting me know the problem and I will ensure it is posted. Two commenters have had this happen to them, and then emailed me. Apologies if it happens to you - fighting spam is crude.

2. I hold all comments for moderation. If I see that a comment is spam, I manually delete it. Currently I delete maybe 100 or more comments this way.

But Why Didn’t My Comment Get Posted?

For any of a number of reasons:

1. I am away from the computer
What can I say? I really do have a life. Perhaps I’m drawing pictures in the jax. When I return I will approve your comment and release it from moderation limbo.

2. Your comment was spam
You may think that spam is something that only exists in emails, but in the world of web development it exists everywhere, and can be comments, whole websites, or entire blogs (splogs = spam blogs). If you post a comment promoting an event, product or service that bears no relation to the post you’re commenting on - it will be treated as spam. Delete.

3. Your comment was irrelevant
I have deleted just 1 comment to date for being irrelevant. Why, and what do I mean anyway? Because if you comment about something entirely different to what my post is about, you reduce the number of people who will find that page when searching for the information I’ve posted on. You are reducing my traffic, and I am therefore making less money.

I do realize people make mistakes, so if I have the time I move irrelevant comments to a relevant post - which is what I have done to date all times bar one. This takes time though. If there are no relevant posts however, then there is nothing for you to comment on. Consider starting your own website.

4. Your comment was personally abusive
I have not yet deleted any comments for this reason. But if I find a comment being posted solely to throw personal insult at me or a commenter, I do reserve the right to delete it. You can certainly call me a loser, but please give your reason.

If you want to throw personal abuse at me that is unrelated to Irish KC consider using the phone, but note that if you call me up to 100 times in a day I may be inclined to stop answering.

Email is another option for personal abuse unrelated to Irish KC, but again if I receive 50 emails in a single day I am likely to treat your email address as I treat all email viruses, even manual ones.

The US Postal Service is a trustworthy and traditional method for sending personal abuse to me that unrelated to Irish KC, but please send the abuse to me here in Kansas City and not to my parents in Ireland.

5. Your comment has no place on my website
If you have ever been married to me, then I will not permit comments to be posted on Irish KC, by you or anybody acting on your behalf, nor anybody purporting to be you or somebody acting for you.

Also please note the following further considerations on commenting:

Privacy
Note that Irish KC is written by a character called Eolaí gan Fhéile. If you want to address me by any other name, then you shouldn’t be commenting on Irish KC; you should seek other places to find the person you want to address. For privacy reasons I reserve the right to edit any references to me as other than Eolaí gan Fhéile and the usual variations of name.

I for my part will respect whatever level of privacy you as a commenter choose to employ, and will not allow other commenters to out you.

Responding
I’ll try to respond to all comments where it appears a response is required. Sometimes one is not. Other times I need to do something first and then forget. And other such reasons from the realm of common sense. If you think I have forgotten you, prod me gently.

Also I am conscious of trying not to have the last word in any discussion that may take place. It’s a balance, and I certainly don’t always get right.

Comments are Closed
In general I prefer to leave comments open indefinitely, but that’s not always wise. Sometimes I close comments on a post. Usually for one of these reasons:

1. The post was very-date specific and has clearly run its course.
2. A particular post is being heavily bombarded by spam, and no amount of filtering through the blacklist lessens my workload. If I think we can all live without further comments on that post, I close it.
3. If a thread of comments is continued in a new post, to avoid confusion and splitting the thread into two places or more, it’s best to close comments on the previous post.
4. It has never happened but should I ever post on a personal subject of which I want no feedback, heck, it’s my site so I’ll probably close comments from the off.

But You’re Mean When You Disagree With Me
Maybe I am. But no I don’t put everyone’s name in lights who disagrees with me. I wrote a post about comments by David Shaughnessy because the comments he made suggested I was doing something to the detriment of a former client. I wasn’t, I can’t, and I wouldn’t if I could. Suggesting otherwise hurts me in my attempts to gain new clients and make a living here in Kansas City.

And now, guess what? Comments are open. If you feel the need to comment in a relevant, non-spammy, non-insulting, non-outing way, have at it.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 2:36 am and is filed under 1-eolai, Housekeeping. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.