YJL

Everyone likes comments, right? At least, if they are positive or constructive comments, then there should be no reason that you don’t like them. I would love seeing people commenting on my stuff. (Not only on my blog posts)

But recently, in the last few days, I have been annoyed by a commenter and I began to think if I should put a notice before the comments loader button for someone who is about to leave a comment. I don’t like closing comments or moderating every comment. I feel if someone closes comments, then he or she might be afraid of critics.

Here is a screenshot in Disqus moderation panel, please be aware that I used Firebug to edit the layout so they can all fit into one shot. I also used jQuery to replace the email addresses. (It’s good to be able to code).

When his first comment came in, I thought “Oh no, a spam sneaks in.” I have such thought because the comment content is written in title case style, meaning every word is capitalized. I read the comment again and I found it’s actually written by human. So I replied and I found there were two more comments. I couldn’t understand those two comments entirely. And that’s the time I started to feel that this commenter was indeed to promote his own blog by leaving a comment. Until now, it’s still fairly to say I can’t judge his intention even he did literally left “Visit My Blog and Comment” later in one comment, but certainly I very dislike his commenting behavior.

Slightly off-topic: One kind of comment which I can’t stand is those commenter leave a link at the end which links to their own blogs or something and those links have nothing to do with the post, nothing at all, whatsoever.

Recently, someone commented on one of my project’s blog posts. It’s a troubleshooting request. I have clearly informed them about troubleshooting should be posted on discussion group, but she still commented on. I know it’s a she because she left a link to her blog (it’s actually a big blog) and her Twitter and probably her Facebook or MySpace (I can’t remember which was). She left her contact information intentionally, it must be by intention using copy-and-pasting. Maybe there is a browser add-on for that purpose?

Off-off-topic: If you have read my contact information in About page, you should know I have a very strict rule about what you can email me. A quick summary is you may not unless it’s a security issue. I had got a lot of troubleshooting emails before and I was tired of them. It’s not as if I don’t want to help you. It’s sometimes they didn’t give information. If I recall correctly, I have got an email with this, “You code didn’t work on my blog, can you help me?” Or something like that. I didn’t know I was an acting God.

Back to the off-topic After I tested and found it’s actually nothing wrong with my code, I deleted that comment, even my code didn’t work I would still delete without replying. But I would fix the bug and don’t notify her.

A word is a word. I keep it.

I don’t understand why some people leave a bunch of lines which can be interpreted as injected promotion or even simply as spam. This kind of situation I have also seen on mailing list, Usenet, or forums. What’s the need of your contact information? Your email address already in the header or they can PM or use the contact information in profile page.

Back to the trail. I started to get funny feeling about this commenter and I intentionally started to ignore his comments. But more I looked the more I couldn’t stand, so I decided to take action.

In my old blogs, I had these notices:

• Any irrelevant comments to this post will be deleted. You can use these HTML tags: <b>, <i>, and <a>.
• All comments will be moderated before being published in order to deal with spams.
• Comments are closed due to spams. If you need to reach me, please google me to find a way.
• Comments must be related to the page. If you have problems on using Btns, please post them at discussion group[link removed], otherwise your comments will be deleted and ignored.

Some were for dealing for spams after I started updating before I imported them into this blog. Beside the relativity, there is one kind of thing called Power-Posting, Arch Linux forums has a great definition of it. Quick examples:

• I like it.

• Awesome.

• +1

  Note

  Bitbucket even implements a detection specially just for +1 comments. (2015-07-18T01:16:03Z)

(This post was supposed to be posted about more than 12 hours ago when I finished the first draft. I held back because I still wanted to wait if he would just go away. After I posted previous post [you can click on “Older post” at the end of this page to see that post], he commented again, he wrote “Awesome.” I should buy a lottery ticket)

They are indeed suspicious to be spams for first two cases, ain’t they? Some bloggers or forums may tolerate such kind, but some are not. And it’s not anymore from me, I have some of that kind in my blog, now I am going to delete them. Some develop a method which enables you showing your appreciation or support by simply click on a Like it button. (Facebook?)

As a note for you, Disqus has such buttons as well. I like this page and I don’t like this page. Go ahead to click on them if you want to, I welcome both.

I don’t object a comment with those. But you must elaborate your reason why you feel that, then your comment will be something, or like nothing if you just say “I like it.”

After these years since I started to use Internet, I began to understand why some people don’t want comments or close comments after about two weeks. Or why old Google Groups and Flickr forums has automatic topic close feature.

One reason is to prevent spam. Spam often showed up after a period time, but I didn’t think it’s true anymore, they are now at anytime in everywhere. The other reason is to avoid comments on old and out-of-date stuff, commenter might complain but the compliant could be unnecessary if they use updated information.

If the comments are closed by the published time, I guess they might be tired of some sort of things. For example, the political topic. That definitely will attract troll and start a flame easily, then you will see F-word everywhere. One thing I feel pitty is some great Flickr users close comments from public. I don’t know why, maybe they don’t like Post 1 Comment/Vote 5? Which I don’t like, either.

Off-topic again: Do you know you can’t post all caps on Flickr? I once wanted to comment in my flawed LOLCAT on a kitten photo, but I found out Flickr doesn’t allow that because some people like to shout in forums.

Another is you can’t leave a link in comments on YouTube, it’s seem to due to the spam. Someone asked what screen recorder I used, I have to give a link in video description. I can’t totally blame YouTube on that, but they already have Mark as Spam button, don’t they?

This post is kind of serious to me. I tried to stall posting but I was pushed. I have said this on Flickr,

if the contact doesn’t care, why should you?

Shouldn’t I care because I own this blog? Therefore I will be doing the following things after I publish this post:

• Delete those comments. (It will include my replies.)
• Delete comments which like those in the future.

I am still debating if I should put a notice. If I do, what should I write? I even think about writing a page, which I am trying hard not to. Maybe, I just do nothing further. Wait until I can’t stand anymore next time from another commenter, I am certain this won’t be the last time if I don’t scare the hell out of commenter with that notice.