Stripping Your Readers

04. Feb, 2008 4 Comments - Leave your comment

Let’s pretend for one second that I’m a reader. Just for a second. Now I go to a blog (or any old website) and I’m after what I’m after.

I could be looking for some news, gossip perhaps on the latest Britney Spears fiasco, or looking for posts that talk about how the New York Giants creamed the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Now indulge me if you will. I’m a reader and I stumble upon a blog post. I may have gotten there via feed reader, via someone else linking to it… but I got there nonetheless.

So I’m reading the post and it intrigues me some. I see there’s a comment section and feel I have something relevant to say and I have an extra resource for people to check out.

I type out my comment. I proof it, double-check my research, and make sure my HTML is all perfect and legit.

I hit the “Submit” button, and boom… I get the message that says, “Your comment has been sent to moderation.”

I’m not too unhappy since bloggers need to screen their comments, but I imagine it was that link I included that got my comment caught by the comment trolls.

But alas, I stroll on and read further.

A few days later I come back to this blog to see if anybody has responded (the punk didn’t have a comment subscription option) and find that my comment has been stripped.

I’m not talking about being stripped in a good way either. The blockquote I inserted? Gone. The link I inserted to what I thought was a relevant source? Gone. In a way, I felt like I had been robbed. Like someone cheated me out of something.

I was a little peeved. Perhaps a little angry. Especially when I saw that someone had responded to my comment, which was now obviously taken out of context without the “extra” information that I had included in the first place.

I e-mailed the owner of the site. I wanted my comment back. If the guy couldn’t get my comment right in the first place, I didn’t want it on his site.

Dear Mr. Blogger:
Either restore my comment to its original state or take it off your site. I don’t want people to have an invalid perception of what I actually said.

He didn’t respond, and he didn’t delete my comment.

Guess that’s the last time I go to this guy’s site. I just simply can’t trust people like that.

The above commentary was a fictional scenario inspired by a post by Lorelle VanFossen: Does Your Blog Comments Strip HTML and Links?

4 Comments on “Stripping Your Readers” - Add yours!

jayne d'Arcy Reply 04. Feb, 2008 at 10:27 pm

I do moderate my comments. I moderate those that include a single link, or first time commentors. I’ve had regular readers who insert HUGELY long urls that sometimes break my layout. I fix those when they’re legitimate links and do my best to keep the comment the way it was left.

I think, as a blog owner, that if I open myself up to comments, it’s just rude of me to jump in and edit a reader’s comment. That’s like me having a conversation with someone and putting my hand over their mouth everytime they say something I don’t want to hear.
Ronald Huereca Reply 05. Feb, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Jayne,

I do dislike having the long URLs in comments and I usually edit those down while not taking down the link. I’ve heard of some plugins that help with this, but have not tried any.

Some people have asked me to add a “edited by” feature on Ajax Edit Comments so that readers can know when admin have edited their comment. I almost don’t want to add that in on principle because Ajax Edit Comments is more a readers tool when it comes to fixing mistakes. Comment editing has gotten a lot easier, but it shouldn’t be an excuse to manipulate a comment a reader has left.

There’s only been a few times I’ve edited comments and that was mostly to censor an inappropriate word.

Thanks for weighing in.
Simonne Reply 05. Feb, 2008 at 11:56 pm

If I were such an admin who uses to edit comments, I wouldn’t install that plugin.

I don’t like it when my comments are changed by the admin of a site, and if I see that, I never comment again there. Actually, I think I’ve encountered this situation only once.

Do you know when I edit comments left by other people on my blog? When they include affiliate links. I don’t delete the link, but I replace their affiliate ID with mine )
abc Reply 08. Feb, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Hey yes ……but how to work on it