Some of you may have noticed that earlier today I added a feature in the sidebar that displays the top commenters. There are two little catches to this new feature:
- You must be registered and logged in when commenting to turn your name into a link to your Web site.
- You must enter your Web site address in your user profile in order for the link to work.
There is one very special thing about this new feature. The outbound links are normal ones which convey full search engine benefits. People often pay a couple hundred dollars a month to get a link to their site from a site as highly ranked as this one, so I guess you could say that it literally pays to be active here!
Why would I do this? Well, I want to encourage and reward visitors who inspire me with commentary and help turn OMB into a real user community. I don’t just put up new content to hear myself talk… I really enjoy feedback and truly appreciate my loyal readers. In fact this is just the first of several ways I’ll be kicking off in the near future to give back to the community…
I only ask a few things:
- You must use a personal URL when you register. Links to commercial sites will be ruthlessly removed. The point of the commenters list is so that we can get to know who YOU are. Not to be used for commercial SEO.
- You must use either your name or your nickname. Absolutely no “keyword” type names will be tolerated.
- Don’t try to game the system. If I get the feeling that someone is leaving a bunch of comments just to try to drive up the numbers I will take immediate action ranging from deleting posts to banning. It only takes about 10 seconds to remove people permanently from showing up on this list, so please don’t abuse the privilege or all your time and energy will have been wasted.
The list reflects the most frequent commenters in the past 30 days. This will ensure that the most currently active commenters will always be listed and ensure that everyone has an equal chance at being listed over time.
If you want to leave comments but don’t want your name to link to a URL, it’s no problem! Just don’t put a URL in your profile and that will take care of it! Or, if you don’t log in that will take care of it as well. :-)
EDIT: We are having a lot of problems lately with people posting comments on the blog with commercial URLs. This is absolutely not going to be tolerated. If someone makes several posts in a row with a commercial URL please expect them to be deleted in their entirety. It takes way too long to edit the URL out of every one of them.
Folks, the bottom line here is that the many thousands (or tens of thousands some days) of people that read this blog every day often read the comments and actually do click on people’s names to check out who they are, but no one wants to end up on a site that looks like an advertisement!
Commercial URLs in comments are a form of SPAM (Comment Spam), and they add no value to the conversation on my site. In addition, I know about services like Buy Blog Comments which pay people to do this – and I despise it as the scourge of the Internet.
PS – Here is why I can’t take the time to contact everyone.
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Next Comments →
Very good idea, but i think you will have a bit of problems with spammers =0S
Well, I’ve already got problems with Spammers, so since I’m already keeping an eye on all the comments I don’t think this change is going to make much difference.
I think it’s a generous thing to do. I wouldn’t worry too much about spammers, especially if you use Akismet. And having to register and login should be enough to discourage most of the system-gamers.
Spammers are usually readily dealt with WP.
Peter, you’ll be amazed to the extent spammer will go, no matter what you do, you still have to keep an eye and read all the comments in the end
Yes, you’re right. But, I’ve been impressed so far with tools like Akismet that do a great job in intercepting *most* spam.
I can’t tell you how many spam comments Akismet has gotten on my blog. Specially if you post with the tag p*rn. Its like they flock there. Anyway love you site, have been reading since you first got dugg.
I agree with dngloz… but this is a good thing… u’ll have more commenters hehehe!
but Akismet won’t be able to detect human spammers…
Well having top commenters in the site is cool idea. Yes, you will have problems with spammers as dngloz said. I have a new born blog about Open source and I used to find 2-5 comments that does not make any sense.
JimShoe: i hate Akismet since it assumes that large number of comments spam :(.
I notice that several of your comments are getting stuck in Akismet and I’m having to go in and periodically approve them. It is possible that if you are commenting on another blog somewhere they could be marking the comments as spam if you are using the same URL that you’ve been using here.
Most bloggers are starting to crack down on anyone using what appear to be commercial URLs or names that look like keywords, and they are doing this by marking them as spam in Akismet. This causes the effect to cascade across ALL blogs and not just their own. I also believe this is going to be a movement that gains momentum as time goes forward.
On a somewhat related note, did you get my e-mail I sent a couple of days ago about this topic?
John
I think it is a great way to develop an active community. I also liked the following plan:
Eventually the feature will reflect the most frequent commenters in the past 30 days
This would probably be the best way to avoid spam. Otherwise, people would make a comment on every post and dissapear.
Overall, I think it is a great idea :)
Regards,
Luke.
I think this is really a good idea, as people can now put some good time reading and communicating back. :)
I have noticed a small big with the new system.
Comment count only accumalates as per diplay name.
I.E.
If I were to change my display name to John and make 10 comments, and then change my display name to Paul and make 10 comments. In the top commenters list, both John and Paul would appear with 10 comments each as a pose to just one user with 20 comments.
Hi John this is a great idea and a great way to bring people together, My posts have been deleted for some reason, if i have broken some rules could you let me know as I do not intend to do this
Thanks
Bobbie
Bobbie (and everyone else),
My moderators are ruthlessly deleting all posts that have commercial (non-personal) URLs for links. The purpose of the recent commenters list on this site is for people to be able to get to know who is making the comments. (Your current link to the cosmetic dentistry guide is commercial.)
There has been a marked increase in the number of commenters lately who are using non-personal links and we simply can’t keep up with notifying people before removing comments, nor can we take the time to edit all of the URLs out of them.
I will re-emphasize this point in the rules above, but for now please be aware that you need to link to a page that is actually about YOU, or at least appears to be your personal blog / site, if you want your comments to show up. From there you can link to your other projects so people can check them out if they want to.
John
I see John, the site that i have listed is actually my prjoject but i understand its not a personal site about me, the only other site I have is my personal dental website for my business kissdental.xx I am the dentist that owns this business and it is about me and showcases my work in the case studies section. Would this also be deemed as a commercial website?
Bobbie,
Yes, that site is completely commercial. It does not pass the test of letting people know who YOU are.
John
Thnks john can i stil comment then if i remove the url? and then add a site late rto my profile if it is deemed ok? I will ask your permsion first of course
Bobbie,
All comments are welcome, so yes please stick around. I put these articles up to inspire people. But I want to get to know my visitors personally, just as I have shared my own life and personality.
So, when you have an appropriate link you can add it to your profile so that we can all get to know who you really are…
John
John, I sorta asked you in the other post but do you consider my forum a commercial site ? “vbulletinsetup.com” it’s just a fan site, yes we have ad’s on it, but that’s just to cover the server fee’s.
Or I even have a blog on the forum vbulletinsetup.com/blogs/ then it’s Brandon’s blog.. would it be okay to link to that blog or forum ?
Thanks
-Brandon
Thanks John and i fully understand where you are coming from this site is about you and so I guess you would want me to showcase a similar site about me if i was to add a link. I think that the site is great so diverse and lots of great topics
I agree, I find myself looking at post that where made several months ago and going ” wow, I ‘m glad I found out X”
I would comment on them but most my comments have been deleted in the last 2 days that I’m starting to forget what I had commented on the first time..lol
Hi,
I think that your attempt at removing link spam is reasonable. However, I think I am not alone in feeling a little lost about your definition of a “commercial” site. If I have a blog on which I blog my thoughts about real estate (and the blog has adsense, but no other avenue for commerce), then is it a commercial site?
Thanks
Ajeet
Ajeet,
I’m going to turn the question around on you and ask you to answer it. Tell me how in the world I’m supposed to know that your blog is legitimately about you, or your interests, based on what I see when I visit it.
For all I know you are a blatant spammer and your URL is a SPLOG, and the Web is not a democratic place. You are not assumed innocent until proven guilty. Here, if people take a quick look and judge you as guilty then they just leave. (And a little free advice… you have WAY too many ads on the site to look like you’re trying to help others. It makes it look like the site exists only for one purpose…)
So, really you are assumed guilty until you demonstrate innocence. That means that when commenting on other sites it’s up to you to provide a URL that makes people want to stick around and learn more. They are not going to do that if you don’t make it personal.
So, if someone on my blog sees a post that you wrote and think, “I’d like to know a little more about this person” will they find out anything about you by following your link?
John
Hi John,
Thanks for your generousity for allowing us to come to your blogging community.
I just registered myself in your blog and I will start reading your post now.
Thanks again.
WP_Blogger
Next Comments →