It seems to me, and I’m relatively new, the purpose behind a blog is to increase dialog and the open exchange of ideas.

With that in mind, deleting comments for anything other than obscenities, insults or libelous statements seems to go against the grain when it comes to how the new Web community seems to work.

Disagreement is part of life, if we can’t accept that — whether as a blogger or communicator, then we’re in the wrong field.

Even then, on our blog, I would rather just edit the comment that may use inappropriate language and make it clear that, although that aspect wasn’t appreciated, the opinion or contribution behind the comment was and should be shared.

Those are just my two cents though!

Kris

I received comments from other bloggers that ended a terse disagreement with the phrase “you’ll probably delete this comment”.

Have bloggers become so spineless that they can’t disagree without the fear of retribution?

Jonathan

Where do I/we draw the line? On PR Conversations, the intent is to let the comments and conversations flow in an organic and productive manner. We welcome debate, particularly from new sources, that add to our global conversations. Our readership is very, very diverse. And yes it continues to grow. Oh that our comment section reflected even a fraction of the various nationalities that find our targeted public-relations-targeted material of interest and use.

We don’t employ comment moderation, because with so many contributors, all working full-time jobs in addition to this volunteer commitment and experiment, it just wouldn’t be practical.

Outright spam gets eliminated as soon as it is detected, either by that post’s author or by our overall blog administrator, Andrea. (He also works, so a lot of his blog administration and upgrades are done in the evenings or weekends.)

We’ve been lucky, in that there was only one incident where we were the victim of someone abusing our platform to promote (quite blatantly) his new service. We actually had some offline policy discussions about the appropriateness of the “advertisement” comment (which some labelled as astroturfing).

The first decision was to delete the comment wholesale, with the author informed that this had happened, and an invitation issued to rewrite and repost a comment, requesting that the rewritten one actually have something to contribute to the post (PR and social media), and to respect the mandate and tone of our blog: productive discussions on public relations and related areas.

The individual agreed to do that. But he didn’t really. Comment after comment continued to be blatant “selling,” with the self-interest and motivation quite clear. Despite that…and despite some rather combatative discourse with the perpetrator, we did let all but the original comment stand. I actually argued in favour of leaving the comments online, because I don’t like censorship.

I welcome and like debate, provided it is done in an intelligent (i.e., backed by facts and persuasive arguments) and respectful manner. We don’t always have to agree with one another. We certainly shouldn’t be telling one another what to say, think or feel. Hanging about in little bloggy cliques, with glib and oft declarations of “friendships” and alliances just feels way too much like high school. I left high school a long, long time ago. I have no interest in an ether version.

Given how so many social media evangelists bleat about the absolute need for accountability and ethics, transparency and honesty, what I found very offensive in this particular incident was the swift “revisionist history” tinkering to the comment section. And, of course, the revisionism was limited to anything that was even the slightest bit critical. The happy bleats of “thank you for including me on your list” (which I find to be such an annoying waste of real estate space), of course remained intact.

I also dislike the complicity of this all. How come not a single happy camper expressed surprise, if not dismay, that comments were removed from the post. Surely that cannot be considered a “top” marketing or social media practice? Silence can also be taken as consensus with a decision.

None of us can draw the line on “manufactured” conversations or alliances, gaming for links (i.e., mutual link love) or preceived (versus reality) authority or influence. Those things are out of our control, as long as some bloggers continue to play such games, even if they are disguised as legitimate projects.

What People Like Us *can* do is employ the sniff test for veracity, including questioning conventional wisdom (bloggy or more earthbound). Plus just saying “phooey” to subjective “top” lists, questionable “social media research” and useless memes. Particularly when things appear to stem from personal (or profit-making) motivations and whims, lack of rigour and objectivity.

It’s indeed both gratifying and fun to debate and expose this stuff, whether offline amongst some pals or online in the comments section. Certainly we can’t take any of this stuff too seriously, although I think this ranting could become addictive.

Happy house hunting…..

Judy

See https://www.writingwhitepapers.com/blog/2007/11/06/top-10-marketing-blogs/

Mike

You are also so right about something else: This whole process is a hell of a lot of fun to watch! Looking forward to your feeds!