Some context on my blog comments:

- I require people to include a name and email to comment.
- The Akismet WordPress plugin catches almost all the spam comments I receive.
- I have comments set up to auto-approve if the person has had a comment previously approved (I only did this recently after an onslaught of spam comments).

For those held for moderation, I’m usually am able to judge the commenter in one or two steps.

First, what data have they left about themselves? Specifically, does their email address or website seem suspicious?

Second, what’s in the content in their comment? Sometimes it’s something very benign that seems like a typical comment, but others like to try to hide a spammy URL in there.

If there’s no website, the email looks normal and the comment is somewhat substantive, I’ll allow it. Judging solely by the content you mentioned — “found your blog on delicious” or “love this post” — I’d presume guilt until found innocent.

I don’t put too much time into vetting the typical comment, but I usually err on the side of being safe. For my blog, I know almost all the legit commenters or can look them up easily.

I hope that’s helpful!

Nearly every comment I get on my blog seems like spam. It’s making me crazy – lots of vague things like “found your blog on delicious” or “love this post” by people I don’t know. Some are obvious, when they have products in their name. Others not so, when it’s someone’s blog.

Do you have advice? Should I be ruling heavy handed or lightly?

And Anderson Cooper? Really?

I did the visit the site before re-tweeting it: I always do. And once you had tweeted that you considered it linkbait, I tweeted that, too.

So the source was suspect, and they got a hit from me and, maybe, from some of the people who follow me. Their page rank (maybe) went up, but page ranks go down, too, when web sites don’t deliver long-term value. You can only game the system for so long.

In the meantime, the post got me thinking about who would be on my list of iconic figures from journalism, something I wouldn’t otherwise of been considering. And that reminds me that there are icons I need to keep pointing my students to.

Was visiting the site and RTing an act of responsible journalism? Of course not. Was it sharing information that I found to be of some interest, at least as a starting point to more thought and, perhaps, more conversation? Yes.

So, unlike your experience with the site, I did find value in it, linkbait or not.

(I find value in your post here, too, and will be pointing my students to it as well, as both a cautionary tale and a skillset for web sleuthing. And, no, that is not to suggest in any way that the two posts are of equal value.)