As you know, my top 10 blog posts I read on vacation on Monday included Shel Holtz’s blog about moderating comments. Sneak peak: Joe and I disagree about moderating blog comments. respect the heck out of his decision to moderate his comments. He says he found a comment that said, “ Name redacted is a thief and imposter take no note of him. Have guidelines on your blog that state you will delete comments that appear libelous to you. Blogging, as Kevin Dugan stated in a comment here yesterday, is 80 IQ points. Moderating comments or no? MORE >>

There is always a lot of hoopla and excitement associated with this annual event, though I’ll reserve my comments for later. As of yesterday, anyone can comment on your Facebook page. Previously, one had to Like a page in order to make comments. Why You Should Love All Comments. Comments are one of the most loved and feared aspects of social media. If you have ever read the comments on USA Today or ESPN, you know that they are predominantly the work of trolls that delight in controversy. Negative comments are an opportunity to clarify. MORE >>

Tuesday, Jan 11 : Edelman rep tells us in a one-line e-mail, “Unfortunately we do not have anyone to comment on this.&#. And, like Ryan says in his apology email, if you can’t provide the information, you explain why, not leave it with “Unfortunately we do not have anyone to comment on this.&# Where I come from, “no comment&# is not allowed. Communication best buy best buy on content marketing Edelman mark ragan no comment Ragan ragan.comUh oh. Edelman is in trouble again…this time over a media request from Ragan about  Best Buy On. MORE >>

For so many people nothing feels scarier than opening up yourself and your business to reader comments on a company blog; even seasoned bloggers recognize the difference between blogging for yourself and blogging for your business when faced with the challenge. Over the past couple years, I’ve had several conversations around how to manage comments — not just the workflow with respect to approving, reading, responding — but also the perspective necessary to have thick enough skin to distance yourself a bit from the sentiment or opinion being expressed. MORE >>

The above screenshot is a comment posted to AriWriter two hours ago. Because this blog is powered by WordPress and I run a spam detection plugin called Akismet that automatically places comments meeting certain criteria into a holding pattern, the bestiality comment was not published. This was made up and this is further proof the above comment about BDSM is spam: Spammers try to be clever in their comments, such as Andrew Joseph (not his real name) who uses different email addresses and websites in the hope I would publish his comments. MORE >>