Blogger Magic - Comment Moderation Settings

If you publish a blog, and want your readers to comment, you need to decide whether to moderate comments.

Comment moderation, applied properly, help you to keep abusive and spam comments off your blog. If you want to publish a blog, and have real people commenting, you need to keep spam comments off the blog. People won't comment, if they have to compete with spam.

If you want to publish a blog, and allow Blogger Hosted comments, you really should moderate. If you don't moderate, prepare to remove spam comments after they are published. Remember that Google+ Hosted comments are moderated by the community.

You setup moderation, for Blogger Hosted comments, from the dashboard Settings - "Posts, comments and sharing" page.

Under "Comments", you have "Comment Moderation", with 3 settings.

• Always.
• Sometimes.
• Never.

Moderation settings are in the Settings - Posts, comments and sharing page.



Moderate Always.

Every comment, published by somebody who is not an administrator or author, will be moderated.

With "Always" or "Sometimes" selected, moderated comments will be sent to each email address listed in "Email moderation requests to".

Select "Always", "Sometimes", or "Never".



You - or whoever is addressed under "Email moderation requests to" - will have the ability to moderate from the email message received. You, or any blog administrator, can moderate from the dashboard Comments - "Awaiting moderation" page.

Moderate Sometimes.

You can selectively moderate comments for older posts, with newer posts not subject to moderation.

If you select "Sometimes", you provide a moderation threshold.

Here, we are set to moderate all posts older than 14 days.



Every post subject to moderation will receive the treatment, selected for "Always". Every newer post, not subject to moderation, will permit any comment to be published immediately.

Moderate Never.

Any comment, submitted to be published, will publish immediately.

Dashboard moderation offers three options.

With every comment listed in the dashboard Comments - "Awaiting moderation" page, you have 3 options.

• Publish.
• Delete.
• Spam.

Once one of these options is chosen, for any comment being moderated, you'll have similar - but not symmetrical - options.

EMail moderation offers similar options.

With each comment moderated by email, you'll have 3 similar options.

• Publish.
• Delete.
• Mark as spam.

Select "Publish", "Delete", or "Mark as spam".



Besides moderation, you can select CAPTCHA verification.

Besides moderation, you can reduce spam, using CAPTCHA verification. If selected, all non administrators and authors will be subject to CAPTCHA verification.

If not selected, anybody commenting anonymously - and not signed in with a Google account - will still be subject to CAPTCHA verification. The "Show word verification" setting applies to comments posted with the publisher properly authenticated.

Right now, the CAPTCHA used is a word puzzle - and has received mixed reviews.

The bottom line.

As a blog owner, you should choose a comment moderation policy - if you allow Blogger Hosted comments.

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If you allow #Blogger Hosted comments on your blog, you need to choose a moderation policy. Moderation is essential, to reduce spam, and encourage comments by actual blog readers.