October 27, 2008 103 Comments

How Corporates Should View Comment Policies

mouth After reading some of the commenting hubbub here, and after a quick exchange with mister Jeremy Pepper on Twitter, I realized that I should weigh in on my take on comments and how a company should think about moderating their community conversations.

First, we should take a moment to appreciate that people like Pepsi are putting themselves out there for commentary. I’m sure they won’t be thrilled to see that lots of people complaining about the design, but maybe they should be. Because at least in this medium, we’ve captured it. People can see it, turn it over in their heads, pass it around the team. I think it’s a great way to see what’s really out there versus a survey. With that said, here’s more.

How Corporates Should View Comment Policies

It’s Not Wrong to Protect Your Living Room

First, to the advocates of “unfiltered all the time,” I say bull—. Oh, did I censor myself? Meet me in person and you’ll realize that I curse like a sailor. I do it for effect some times. But do I curse on my blog? Not often, because I want your bosses (you?) to be able to read it and not get turned off.

Think of your corporate communications channel as a living room with a six year old girl in it. Here’s one to use for visualization:

Outback Girl- Violette Now, with her in mind, let’s make sure that you don’t permit vulgarity in your public forum. This isn’t a stead fast rule, but it’s a great way to think about the tone you want to set. I, personally, don’t want to be involved in any conversations in the public eye, that I couldn’t have with my daughter standing there with me. Is there a time and a place for spittle and rage? Sure! Politics comes right to mind. But it’s not the tone I’d choose to set with a corporation, so I’m going to stick with the six-year-old-in-the-living-room yardstick. Fair?

What does have to be allowed, however, is dissent and discourse.

You handle this by turning on comment moderation. If you choose this, however, you must have a fast response time for posting comments. This can’t be a “check it when you can” chore for an intern.

Allow for Dissent and Discourse

People might not agree with your every word. They might hate your new design. They might think you’re evil. They might say you’re a bully. Whenever the argument isn’t exactly rude, vulgar, or legally slanderous, leave it there. Acknowledge it. Don’t feel that you have to genuflect or beg forgiveness (unless you’re wrong), but acknowledge it. Something like this would suffice:

“Thanks for your perspective, Karen. You clearly don’t like the new design. We hope it grows on you, but you’re proof that we can’t please everyone. Do you like what’s in the can?”

It’s human. It’s direct. It acknowledges, and it doesn’t feel like a company line.

If You’re Going to Moderate

Be fast about it. If it takes four hours to see a comment in a thread, that’s too long. Don’t relegate this to the intern’s position, but don’t make this a legal roller coaster. Put someone who’s an obvious advocate and reasonably intelligent person in place, and then put two or three more. Not sure where to find that person? If you still do customer service in-house, use one of them, the advocate types. If not, then look for someone within the org who can be a human on your behalf. If not that, you might look at some kind of community manager outreach company or evangelist. Hire someone like Connie Bensen, for instance.

Velocity of comments is something we online folks pay attention to, and so should you.

Yes, Virginia, There Are Off-Topic and “Bad” Comments

Where you might disagree with me most is here: I think it’s okay to remove really off-topic comments from a corporate blog. I’m talking “really” off-topic. If your corporate blog is about marine parts and boating supplies, and their comment is about how Barack Obama is a scary man and must be stopped, feel free to delete. By free, let me qualify.

I’d recommend an email directly to the person’s submitted email name with your reasons for deleting. This will do one of two things: get that person to comment appropriately from then on, or it will spur them to send you an angry stream of comments that will forever scar the eyes of your reviewers.

You might disagree. You might say, “let the chips fall where they may.” But the thing is this: the audience who’s chosen to engage with the blog isn’t there with carte blanche to do what they wish. This is a chosen engagement. This is a relationship point. It’s NOT the right place for every interaction with an organization. It’s a place.

Just like Frank Eliason isn’t the right guy to bug about Net Neutrality, not every corporate blog is the outlet for your every gripe about a product, industry, or the way of the world.

And further, think about this for a moment: if every time a big company launches a blog, they get nothing but diatribe in return, do you think we’re doing a great job as digital natives of welcoming them to the conversation? I’m saying no. You tell me what you think in my non-edited (but for spam) comments section. Okay?

So that’s my take. There are probably other best practices out there, but these are mine. What do you think we should add? What other questions do you have? Don’t be afraid. It’s fun to learn together!

Photo credit, Hamed Saber

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Genesis Framework

Genesis Theme Framework

The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress. Whether you're a novice or advanced developer, Genesis provides you with the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.

With automatic theme updates and world-class support included, Genesis is the smart choice for your WordPress website or blog.

Become a StudioPress Affiliate

Newer Comments →
  • http://blog.angelaconnor.com AngelaConnor

    I supervise a team of moderators for WRAL.com and we moderate in real-time. It gets hectic on crazy news days. Actually, it’s hectic most days but we hold bi-weekly conference calls to discuss issues and I tell them that we are to constantly evolve. The user experience is good. We went from no moderation to full moderation. And while we dealt with a lot of complaints at first, they’ve died down tremendously because we are committed to real-time. I am known to preach from the mountaintops about news organizations moderating comments. I just think it needs to be done right and done well. they have my support, and I give them a break when we’ve got a slew of major stories bringing in lengthy comments that range from tame to wildly controversial. You need to go in knowing your goals, and figure out how to make it work.

  • http://blog.angelaconnor.com AngelaConnor

    I supervise a team of moderators for WRAL.com and we moderate in real-time. It gets hectic on crazy news days. Actually, it’s hectic most days but we hold bi-weekly conference calls to discuss issues and I tell them that we are to constantly evolve. The user experience is good. We went from no moderation to full moderation. And while we dealt with a lot of complaints at first, they’ve died down tremendously because we are committed to real-time. I am known to preach from the mountaintops about news organizations moderating comments. I just think it needs to be done right and done well. they have my support, and I give them a break when we’ve got a slew of major stories bringing in lengthy comments that range from tame to wildly controversial. You need to go in knowing your goals, and figure out how to make it work.

  • http://blog.angelaconnor.com Angela Connor

    I supervise a team of moderators for WRAL.com and we moderate in real-time. It gets hectic on crazy news days. Actually, it’s hectic most days but we hold bi-weekly conference calls to discuss issues and I tell them that we are to constantly evolve. The user experience is good. We went from no moderation to full moderation. And while we dealt with a lot of complaints at first, they’ve died down tremendously because we are committed to real-time. I am known to preach from the mountaintops about news organizations moderating comments. I just think it needs to be done right and done well. they have my support, and I give them a break when we’ve got a slew of major stories bringing in lengthy comments that range from tame to wildly controversial. You need to go in knowing your goals, and figure out how to make it work.

  • Perry

    Chris -

    I agree with almost everything you say. The only thing I might take issue with, although I definitely realize I might be wrong on this, is the subject of off-topic posts. I find that often those are the best part of a discussion site, and a major part in how a community develops. That said, I can’t expect Pepsi to pay for a site for me and my Pepsi buddies (assuming I had any “Pepsi buddies”) to use if our thousands of posts about burps (which is likely something that would crack-up a “Pepsi buddy”) obscure the discussion that they are trying to encourage.

    Maybe the best solution is to have an “off-topic” section, where posts, or threads that degenerate off-topic, can be sent.

    The other question (for any group) is how you define “inappropriate” comments. I used to have a “if it’s acceptable before 9 pm on TV, it should be acceptable” (theoretically similar to your “6 yr old” test), but given some of the shows airing before 9pm, I think that might be too liberal. No proposed solution for this one, though.

  • Perry

    Chris -

    I agree with almost everything you say. The only thing I might take issue with, although I definitely realize I might be wrong on this, is the subject of off-topic posts. I find that often those are the best part of a discussion site, and a major part in how a community develops. That said, I can’t expect Pepsi to pay for a site for me and my Pepsi buddies (assuming I had any “Pepsi buddies”) to use if our thousands of posts about burps (which is likely something that would crack-up a “Pepsi buddy”) obscure the discussion that they are trying to encourage.

    Maybe the best solution is to have an “off-topic” section, where posts, or threads that degenerate off-topic, can be sent.

    The other question (for any group) is how you define “inappropriate” comments. I used to have a “if it’s acceptable before 9 pm on TV, it should be acceptable” (theoretically similar to your “6 yr old” test), but given some of the shows airing before 9pm, I think that might be too liberal. No proposed solution for this one, though.

  • Perry

    Chris -

    I agree with almost everything you say. The only thing I might take issue with, although I definitely realize I might be wrong on this, is the subject of off-topic posts. I find that often those are the best part of a discussion site, and a major part in how a community develops. That said, I can’t expect Pepsi to pay for a site for me and my Pepsi buddies (assuming I had any “Pepsi buddies”) to use if our thousands of posts about burps (which is likely something that would crack-up a “Pepsi buddy”) obscure the discussion that they are trying to encourage.

    Maybe the best solution is to have an “off-topic” section, where posts, or threads that degenerate off-topic, can be sent.

    The other question (for any group) is how you define “inappropriate” comments. I used to have a “if it’s acceptable before 9 pm on TV, it should be acceptable” (theoretically similar to your “6 yr old” test), but given some of the shows airing before 9pm, I think that might be too liberal. No proposed solution for this one, though.

  • http://www.needish.com/people/emily Emily Williams

    Great point about the audience not getting to do whatever they want. I think it’s easy for people online to feel like the internet is theirs and they should be allowed to act as they want, but different sites have different purposes. I wish more people would keep that in mind the next time they cry “censorship” when really it’s just a case of certain postings not being appropriate for certain places.

    It will be interesting to see how Pepsi moves forward from today, if they can grow from the feedback they could have a great thing going here.

  • http://www.needish.com/people/emily Emily Williams

    Great point about the audience not getting to do whatever they want. I think it’s easy for people online to feel like the internet is theirs and they should be allowed to act as they want, but different sites have different purposes. I wish more people would keep that in mind the next time they cry “censorship” when really it’s just a case of certain postings not being appropriate for certain places.

    It will be interesting to see how Pepsi moves forward from today, if they can grow from the feedback they could have a great thing going here.

  • http://www.needish.com/people/emily Emily Williams

    Great point about the audience not getting to do whatever they want. I think it’s easy for people online to feel like the internet is theirs and they should be allowed to act as they want, but different sites have different purposes. I wish more people would keep that in mind the next time they cry “censorship” when really it’s just a case of certain postings not being appropriate for certain places.

    It will be interesting to see how Pepsi moves forward from today, if they can grow from the feedback they could have a great thing going here.

  • http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Dan Thornton

    Good post, and as someone who spent 7 years moderating the forums/chat rooms for motorcyclenews.com amongst others, it’s definitely important to set some boundaries if the forum/community is accessible to all ages. A simple swear filter generally catches the most offensive words, for example, and simple reminders work for most people…

    But the line on off-topic posts is harder to judge a lot of the time – it’s a fine line between keeping things ‘on topic’ and killing conversations, assuming there’s any agreement between the founders and the conversationalists on what ‘on topic’ constitutes in the first place! For most applications, having an ‘on topic’ forum, and a ‘general’ one does a good job of allowing focus, without killing the more general noise a community will want to indulge in.

    I’m more worried by the fact Pepsi appears to have imported it’s own ToS to apply to the FriendFeed room!

  • http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Dan Thornton

    Good post, and as someone who spent 7 years moderating the forums/chat rooms for motorcyclenews.com amongst others, it’s definitely important to set some boundaries if the forum/community is accessible to all ages. A simple swear filter generally catches the most offensive words, for example, and simple reminders work for most people…

    But the line on off-topic posts is harder to judge a lot of the time – it’s a fine line between keeping things ‘on topic’ and killing conversations, assuming there’s any agreement between the founders and the conversationalists on what ‘on topic’ constitutes in the first place! For most applications, having an ‘on topic’ forum, and a ‘general’ one does a good job of allowing focus, without killing the more general noise a community will want to indulge in.

    I’m more worried by the fact Pepsi appears to have imported it’s own ToS to apply to the FriendFeed room!

  • http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Dan Thornton

    Good post, and as someone who spent 7 years moderating the forums/chat rooms for motorcyclenews.com amongst others, it’s definitely important to set some boundaries if the forum/community is accessible to all ages. A simple swear filter generally catches the most offensive words, for example, and simple reminders work for most people…

    But the line on off-topic posts is harder to judge a lot of the time – it’s a fine line between keeping things ‘on topic’ and killing conversations, assuming there’s any agreement between the founders and the conversationalists on what ‘on topic’ constitutes in the first place! For most applications, having an ‘on topic’ forum, and a ‘general’ one does a good job of allowing focus, without killing the more general noise a community will want to indulge in.

    I’m more worried by the fact Pepsi appears to have imported it’s own ToS to apply to the FriendFeed room!

  • http://altitudebranding.com Amber Naslund

    I rather look at my blog as hosting houseguests, and I think the same logic can apply to a corporation. I intend to put out content that’s suited to my guests, and hopefully engage them in conversation around a topic. And the conversation can meander sometimes, but all in all, I try to be mindful that all my guests may not have my proclivity for profanity (band name?), so I edit for their sake. Plus, I want to make sure my point gets across and isn’t clouded by my colorful language.

    Same rules apply to them, then: You may disagree, even strongly. You may refute me, challenge me, challenge my guests. You may not be overtly profane, rude, defamatory, or vulgar. You’re in my house, and I make the rules.

    That said, I’m big on open conversation so my choice is to moderate only the major offenders, and only when they’re really out of line (which again, is subjective). It’s as much about respecting my fellow guests who *do* have some restraint as “censoring” those that don’t.

  • http://altitudebranding.com Amber Naslund

    I rather look at my blog as hosting houseguests, and I think the same logic can apply to a corporation. I intend to put out content that’s suited to my guests, and hopefully engage them in conversation around a topic. And the conversation can meander sometimes, but all in all, I try to be mindful that all my guests may not have my proclivity for profanity (band name?), so I edit for their sake. Plus, I want to make sure my point gets across and isn’t clouded by my colorful language.

    Same rules apply to them, then: You may disagree, even strongly. You may refute me, challenge me, challenge my guests. You may not be overtly profane, rude, defamatory, or vulgar. You’re in my house, and I make the rules.

    That said, I’m big on open conversation so my choice is to moderate only the major offenders, and only when they’re really out of line (which again, is subjective). It’s as much about respecting my fellow guests who *do* have some restraint as “censoring” those that don’t.

  • http://altitudebranding.com Amber Naslund

    I rather look at my blog as hosting houseguests, and I think the same logic can apply to a corporation. I intend to put out content that’s suited to my guests, and hopefully engage them in conversation around a topic. And the conversation can meander sometimes, but all in all, I try to be mindful that all my guests may not have my proclivity for profanity (band name?), so I edit for their sake. Plus, I want to make sure my point gets across and isn’t clouded by my colorful language.

    Same rules apply to them, then: You may disagree, even strongly. You may refute me, challenge me, challenge my guests. You may not be overtly profane, rude, defamatory, or vulgar. You’re in my house, and I make the rules.

    That said, I’m big on open conversation so my choice is to moderate only the major offenders, and only when they’re really out of line (which again, is subjective). It’s as much about respecting my fellow guests who *do* have some restraint as “censoring” those that don’t.

  • http://wesleyism.com Wesley

    This is a great post, Chris. Personally I think the best policy is to allow comments to appear immediately and if you don’t want curse words on your blog simply have them automatically blocked out with asterisks. I can understand people who undertake the whole “guests in my home” thing but to me it seems arrogant. I’m not saying people shouldn’t delete certain comments (obviously there are some, like “you suckckkkx omfg gezz” for example should probably be deleted) but I think it’s worth the occasional annoying comment popping up to have the rest appearing as soon as they are made. As long as it doesn’t become excessive, I’d probably just leave them up.

    And I know this isn’t related to the post, but why did the post vanish for five minutes then reappear? I’m just curious.

  • http://wesleyism.com Wesley

    This is a great post, Chris. Personally I think the best policy is to allow comments to appear immediately and if you don’t want curse words on your blog simply have them automatically blocked out with asterisks. I can understand people who undertake the whole “guests in my home” thing but to me it seems arrogant. I’m not saying people shouldn’t delete certain comments (obviously there are some, like “you suckckkkx omfg gezz” for example should probably be deleted) but I think it’s worth the occasional annoying comment popping up to have the rest appearing as soon as they are made. As long as it doesn’t become excessive, I’d probably just leave them up.

    And I know this isn’t related to the post, but why did the post vanish for five minutes then reappear? I’m just curious.

  • http://wesleyism.com Wesley

    This is a great post, Chris. Personally I think the best policy is to allow comments to appear immediately and if you don’t want curse words on your blog simply have them automatically blocked out with asterisks. I can understand people who undertake the whole “guests in my home” thing but to me it seems arrogant. I’m not saying people shouldn’t delete certain comments (obviously there are some, like “you suckckkkx omfg gezz” for example should probably be deleted) but I think it’s worth the occasional annoying comment popping up to have the rest appearing as soon as they are made. As long as it doesn’t become excessive, I’d probably just leave them up.

    And I know this isn’t related to the post, but why did the post vanish for five minutes then reappear? I’m just curious.

  • Gordon Holtslander

    I think you either have to let the comments go straight through and then moderate/edit/delete those that are completely inappropriate as a second pass or you have to moderate in real time. Either way, in a context like this one, it means someone who actually knows what’s going on is going to spend their work day reading comments. I strongly believe that the conversation is either worthwhile doing, so you put someone on it to actively converse, or it’s not. If it’s not worth doing well, then just leave it off. Have a standard company blog that tells me what you are doing and it’s purely FYI and makes not pretense of asking ‘what do you think.’

    You can’t have it both ways which is the pain Pepsi is feeling right now.

  • Gordon Holtslander

    I think you either have to let the comments go straight through and then moderate/edit/delete those that are completely inappropriate as a second pass or you have to moderate in real time. Either way, in a context like this one, it means someone who actually knows what’s going on is going to spend their work day reading comments. I strongly believe that the conversation is either worthwhile doing, so you put someone on it to actively converse, or it’s not. If it’s not worth doing well, then just leave it off. Have a standard company blog that tells me what you are doing and it’s purely FYI and makes not pretense of asking ‘what do you think.’

    You can’t have it both ways which is the pain Pepsi is feeling right now.

  • Gordon Holtslander

    I think you either have to let the comments go straight through and then moderate/edit/delete those that are completely inappropriate as a second pass or you have to moderate in real time. Either way, in a context like this one, it means someone who actually knows what’s going on is going to spend their work day reading comments. I strongly believe that the conversation is either worthwhile doing, so you put someone on it to actively converse, or it’s not. If it’s not worth doing well, then just leave it off. Have a standard company blog that tells me what you are doing and it’s purely FYI and makes not pretense of asking ‘what do you think.’

    You can’t have it both ways which is the pain Pepsi is feeling right now.

  • http://conniebensen.com/ Connie Bensen

    I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. (thanks Chris for the call out!)

    I don’t moderate comments on my blog. And my opinion is that if you have a corporate brand with a solid brand & a strong community manager then the comments shouldn’t need to be moderated. If the community manager receives the comments in their email, then they should be able to respond quickly.

    When I took over the ACDSee blog I turned the comment moderation off. (no one noticed) And it was a good thing. These are my reasons:
    1. When we leave a comment we like immediate gratification

    2. I don’t like leaving a comment, see that it’s being moderated & then come back later & see 5 others ahead of me (if you do moderate – then I totally agree with Chris – keep up to it!!)

    So if have a community manager that’s on the ball I think it’s cool to not moderate. What do you think of that?

  • http://conniebensen.com/ Connie Bensen

    I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. (thanks Chris for the call out!)

    I don’t moderate comments on my blog. And my opinion is that if you have a corporate brand with a solid brand & a strong community manager then the comments shouldn’t need to be moderated. If the community manager receives the comments in their email, then they should be able to respond quickly.

    When I took over the ACDSee blog I turned the comment moderation off. (no one noticed) And it was a good thing. These are my reasons:
    1. When we leave a comment we like immediate gratification

    2. I don’t like leaving a comment, see that it’s being moderated & then come back later & see 5 others ahead of me (if you do moderate – then I totally agree with Chris – keep up to it!!)

    So if have a community manager that’s on the ball I think it’s cool to not moderate. What do you think of that?

  • http://altitudebranding.com Amber Naslund

    Hey Wesley – Not sure if you were specifically referring to my comment about the houseguests thing, but I wanted to clarify something. I don’t moderate my comments, and in general I don’t believe they *should* be moderated. If something happens to come through that’s really out of line, I’ll go back and edit out the expletives or the entire comment, contact the commenter, and tell them why I did it.

    Only once have I ever had to do it. My reference to houseguests is not to be elitist, but rather to say that I believe that people are inherently good, and will do right by others as if they’re hanging out with them in person. Most of the time. :)

  • http://altitudebranding.com Amber Naslund

    Hey Wesley – Not sure if you were specifically referring to my comment about the houseguests thing, but I wanted to clarify something. I don’t moderate my comments, and in general I don’t believe they *should* be moderated. If something happens to come through that’s really out of line, I’ll go back and edit out the expletives or the entire comment, contact the commenter, and tell them why I did it.

    Only once have I ever had to do it. My reference to houseguests is not to be elitist, but rather to say that I believe that people are inherently good, and will do right by others as if they’re hanging out with them in person. Most of the time. :)

  • http://altitudebranding.com Amber Naslund

    Hey Wesley – Not sure if you were specifically referring to my comment about the houseguests thing, but I wanted to clarify something. I don’t moderate my comments, and in general I don’t believe they *should* be moderated. If something happens to come through that’s really out of line, I’ll go back and edit out the expletives or the entire comment, contact the commenter, and tell them why I did it.

    Only once have I ever had to do it. My reference to houseguests is not to be elitist, but rather to say that I believe that people are inherently good, and will do right by others as if they’re hanging out with them in person. Most of the time. :)

  • http://www.constructivegrumpiness.com Len Kendall

    I like the idea of a Connie Benson. Every forward thinking company should have one. If nothing else, make sure that a “normal” employee can be your Connie Benson for 2 hours a day. Online monitoring tools such as those offered by Radian6 or Collective intellect can help community managers know when to check in to respond to customer feedback.

  • http://www.constructivegrumpiness.com Len Kendall

    I like the idea of a Connie Benson. Every forward thinking company should have one. If nothing else, make sure that a “normal” employee can be your Connie Benson for 2 hours a day. Online monitoring tools such as those offered by Radian6 or Collective intellect can help community managers know when to check in to respond to customer feedback.

  • http://shannonehlers.com Shannon Ehlers

    “Hi Chris, I really enjoyed your post and I think your blog aligns well with my own. I’d like to purchase links on your blog”

    No no, not really, but this is an example of the type of comment I am seeing recently and which I simply ignore (right after I hit the “delete” button). I’m certainly not going to contact the author.

    I do, indeed, moderate comments on my personal blog as well as the blog I am in charge of at work. I think that in many cases, comments are better made on the blog of the comment author, hence giving the author the credit or blame s/he deserves.

    However, I am grateful that you don’t follow this policy, instead allowing us to run roughshod over your work. How’s that for a double standard?

  • http://shannonehlers.com Shannon Ehlers

    “Hi Chris, I really enjoyed your post and I think your blog aligns well with my own. I’d like to purchase links on your blog”

    No no, not really, but this is an example of the type of comment I am seeing recently and which I simply ignore (right after I hit the “delete” button). I’m certainly not going to contact the author.

    I do, indeed, moderate comments on my personal blog as well as the blog I am in charge of at work. I think that in many cases, comments are better made on the blog of the comment author, hence giving the author the credit or blame s/he deserves.

    However, I am grateful that you don’t follow this policy, instead allowing us to run roughshod over your work. How’s that for a double standard?

  • http://shannonehlers.com Shannon Ehlers

    “Hi Chris, I really enjoyed your post and I think your blog aligns well with my own. I’d like to purchase links on your blog”

    No no, not really, but this is an example of the type of comment I am seeing recently and which I simply ignore (right after I hit the “delete” button). I’m certainly not going to contact the author.

    I do, indeed, moderate comments on my personal blog as well as the blog I am in charge of at work. I think that in many cases, comments are better made on the blog of the comment author, hence giving the author the credit or blame s/he deserves.

    However, I am grateful that you don’t follow this policy, instead allowing us to run roughshod over your work. How’s that for a double standard?

  • http://www.chinlawblog.com Dan

    I completely agree. I have actually gotten tougher on comments over the years. I actually employ a standard similar to that you propose. Mine is whether I would care if my daughters (now 18 and 11) read my blog. Now I know my kids are way too cool to ever read my blog, but there have definitely been times where I have invoked the standard of “what if they did so.”

  • http://www.chinlawblog.com Dan

    I completely agree. I have actually gotten tougher on comments over the years. I actually employ a standard similar to that you propose. Mine is whether I would care if my daughters (now 18 and 11) read my blog. Now I know my kids are way too cool to ever read my blog, but there have definitely been times where I have invoked the standard of “what if they did so.”

  • http://www.chinlawblog.com Dan

    I completely agree. I have actually gotten tougher on comments over the years. I actually employ a standard similar to that you propose. Mine is whether I would care if my daughters (now 18 and 11) read my blog. Now I know my kids are way too cool to ever read my blog, but there have definitely been times where I have invoked the standard of “what if they did so.”

  • David Caldwell

    Chris – picked up your blog a couple months ago, and just want to thank you for again putting some common sense thinking into a real issue — you seem to do it a lot. We’ve been working on policies for a corporate blog and we found Southwest Airlines to have simple, helpful model. Keep the good stuff coming.

  • David Caldwell

    Chris – picked up your blog a couple months ago, and just want to thank you for again putting some common sense thinking into a real issue — you seem to do it a lot. We’ve been working on policies for a corporate blog and we found Southwest Airlines to have simple, helpful model. Keep the good stuff coming.

  • David Caldwell

    Chris – picked up your blog a couple months ago, and just want to thank you for again putting some common sense thinking into a real issue — you seem to do it a lot. We’ve been working on policies for a corporate blog and we found Southwest Airlines to have simple, helpful model. Keep the good stuff coming.

  • Pingback: SeanBohan.com » Blog Archive » Corporates and Comments

  • http://www.budgetpulse.com Craig

    Nice post, I agree company’s should take commenting seriously and allow them to establish relationships with their everyday commenting users.

    Craig
    http://www.budgetpulse.com

  • http://www.budgetpulse.com Craig

    Nice post, I agree company’s should take commenting seriously and allow them to establish relationships with their everyday commenting users.

    Craig
    http://www.budgetpulse.com

  • http://www.budgetpulse.com Craig

    Nice post, I agree company’s should take commenting seriously and allow them to establish relationships with their everyday commenting users.

    Craig
    http://www.budgetpulse.com

  • http://blogs.voxeo.com/ Dan York

    Chris, When I started up Voxeo’s corporate blog site about a year ago, the idea of having a “comment policy” honestly never occurred to me. After all, I’d been blogging for 7.5 years at that point and across all my blogs not a single one of them had a stated comment policy.

    However, shortly after launching our blogs, we wound up inadvertently attracting some comments that used language that was “not safe for work”. I realized, though, that while we could certainly delete those comments we had no statement on our site about what we deemed as “acceptable”. We had no public rationale for our actions in removing/censoring comments – and while it was *our* site and so we didn’t really *need* a “rationale”, in the spirit of transparency and openness such a rationale would be helpful. I laid this out in a post here:

    http://bit.ly/1SVJN0

    and our comment policy is now at:

    http://blogs.voxeo.com/comment-policy/

    We do not moderate comments (but do run comment spam filters), but when you go to leave a comment at the bottom of a post, there is the statement right there that by submitting a comment you are agreeing to abide by the terms of our comment policy. Given that, I would feel very comfortable removing any offending comments should they occur.

    The reality is that in the 10 months since we put the comment policy in place and linked to it from our comment submission form, we haven’t received ANY comments that have needed to be removed or censored.

    Good post, Chris.

  • http://blogs.voxeo.com/ Dan York

    Chris, When I started up Voxeo’s corporate blog site about a year ago, the idea of having a “comment policy” honestly never occurred to me. After all, I’d been blogging for 7.5 years at that point and across all my blogs not a single one of them had a stated comment policy.

    However, shortly after launching our blogs, we wound up inadvertently attracting some comments that used language that was “not safe for work”. I realized, though, that while we could certainly delete those comments we had no statement on our site about what we deemed as “acceptable”. We had no public rationale for our actions in removing/censoring comments – and while it was *our* site and so we didn’t really *need* a “rationale”, in the spirit of transparency and openness such a rationale would be helpful. I laid this out in a post here:

    http://bit.ly/1SVJN0

    and our comment policy is now at:

    http://blogs.voxeo.com/comment-policy/

    We do not moderate comments (but do run comment spam filters), but when you go to leave a comment at the bottom of a post, there is the statement right there that by submitting a comment you are agreeing to abide by the terms of our comment policy. Given that, I would feel very comfortable removing any offending comments should they occur.

    The reality is that in the 10 months since we put the comment policy in place and linked to it from our comment submission form, we haven’t received ANY comments that have needed to be removed or censored.

    Good post, Chris.

  • http://blogs.voxeo.com/ Dan York

    Chris, When I started up Voxeo’s corporate blog site about a year ago, the idea of having a “comment policy” honestly never occurred to me. After all, I’d been blogging for 7.5 years at that point and across all my blogs not a single one of them had a stated comment policy.

    However, shortly after launching our blogs, we wound up inadvertently attracting some comments that used language that was “not safe for work”. I realized, though, that while we could certainly delete those comments we had no statement on our site about what we deemed as “acceptable”. We had no public rationale for our actions in removing/censoring comments – and while it was *our* site and so we didn’t really *need* a “rationale”, in the spirit of transparency and openness such a rationale would be helpful. I laid this out in a post here:

    http://bit.ly/1SVJN0

    and our comment policy is now at:

    http://blogs.voxeo.com/comment-policy/

    We do not moderate comments (but do run comment spam filters), but when you go to leave a comment at the bottom of a post, there is the statement right there that by submitting a comment you are agreeing to abide by the terms of our comment policy. Given that, I would feel very comfortable removing any offending comments should they occur.

    The reality is that in the 10 months since we put the comment policy in place and linked to it from our comment submission form, we haven’t received ANY comments that have needed to be removed or censored.

    Good post, Chris.

  • http://mikeproulx.typepad.com Mike Proulx

    I agree with Wesley, and would take it a step further to look at a 3-tiered approach to moderation.

    (1) The first is a visibly posted social media policy (which incorporates a comments policy) that clearly (and transparently) spells out what is/is not acceptable. The community manager, then, has the purview to remove any comments that aren’t appropriate per the policy.

    (2) Second is to do automatic keyword filtering per Wesley’s comment that will quarantine any comments containing words or phrases that are commonly offensive (Love the living room analogy, BTW).

    (3) Last, I’m a big fan of the community policing itself and being empowered to flag any content that they find offensive which would trigger an alert the community manager for review.

    Generally speaking, I support moderation by “exception” and not tightly controlled queuing & screening of comments. Not only is it a resource-intensive (and costly) undertaking for companies to simulate anything close to an acceptable time-to-post but it seems to conflict a bit with the transparency of the social web.

  • http://mikeproulx.typepad.com Mike Proulx

    I agree with Wesley, and would take it a step further to look at a 3-tiered approach to moderation.

    (1) The first is a visibly posted social media policy (which incorporates a comments policy) that clearly (and transparently) spells out what is/is not acceptable. The community manager, then, has the purview to remove any comments that aren’t appropriate per the policy.

    (2) Second is to do automatic keyword filtering per Wesley’s comment that will quarantine any comments containing words or phrases that are commonly offensive (Love the living room analogy, BTW).

    (3) Last, I’m a big fan of the community policing itself and being empowered to flag any content that they find offensive which would trigger an alert the community manager for review.

    Generally speaking, I support moderation by “exception” and not tightly controlled queuing & screening of comments. Not only is it a resource-intensive (and costly) undertaking for companies to simulate anything close to an acceptable time-to-post but it seems to conflict a bit with the transparency of the social web.

  • http://mikeproulx.typepad.com Mike Proulx

    I agree with Wesley, and would take it a step further to look at a 3-tiered approach to moderation.

    (1) The first is a visibly posted social media policy (which incorporates a comments policy) that clearly (and transparently) spells out what is/is not acceptable. The community manager, then, has the purview to remove any comments that aren’t appropriate per the policy.

    (2) Second is to do automatic keyword filtering per Wesley’s comment that will quarantine any comments containing words or phrases that are commonly offensive (Love the living room analogy, BTW).

    (3) Last, I’m a big fan of the community policing itself and being empowered to flag any content that they find offensive which would trigger an alert the community manager for review.

    Generally speaking, I support moderation by “exception” and not tightly controlled queuing & screening of comments. Not only is it a resource-intensive (and costly) undertaking for companies to simulate anything close to an acceptable time-to-post but it seems to conflict a bit with the transparency of the social web.

  • Kathy Sierra

    I agree wholeheartedly! The only thing I’d add is that for some businesses, the “6 year old in the room” might be older. The corporate culture/audience might use a “16-year old in the room” guideline, and that would certainly be different. So, I completely agree on the “guests in my home” metaphor, and each company (or individual blogger) needs to decide exactly what kind of party/gathering they want.

    We do know one thing… without moderation, most popular online forums devolve. It’s a thousand times easier to start with a tighter rein and eventually loosen than to take up the reins of moderation later, as a reaction.

    Thanks for the post (and your gazillion other thoughtful, useful posts).

  • Kathy Sierra

    I agree wholeheartedly! The only thing I’d add is that for some businesses, the “6 year old in the room” might be older. The corporate culture/audience might use a “16-year old in the room” guideline, and that would certainly be different. So, I completely agree on the “guests in my home” metaphor, and each company (or individual blogger) needs to decide exactly what kind of party/gathering they want.

    We do know one thing… without moderation, most popular online forums devolve. It’s a thousand times easier to start with a tighter rein and eventually loosen than to take up the reins of moderation later, as a reaction.

    Thanks for the post (and your gazillion other thoughtful, useful posts).

  • http://twitter.com/rebecatrautner Rebeca Trautner

    funny enough, i just had to address this topic this morning when pitching the corporate blog to my company. one concern brought up was with comments that hype up competitive products. there’s a fear that some of our competitors will pose as unassuming readers and comment on our blog with information about their products. is there room to cover this in a comment policy so we can go ahead and deny those comments? if not, is there a way to publicly address those competitive product posts without shining more of a spotlight on them?

Newer Comments →
GetSocial