Protect Yourself from Bad Blog Comments

Peter Tan filed a police report regarding a blog comment in his blog. Jeff Ooi almost got himself into trouble by a blog comment as well. Rajan, Lim Kit Siang and other forums are having bad comments as well [ Politics 101 ].

I am not going to comment on the comments. As a WordPress blogger, I notice that most of them are not using WordPress.

Peter Tan and Jeff Ooi are using MovableType (MT) but not the latest version (3.2) that has better controls on comments. Lim Kit Siang blog is hosted at Blogger’s Blogspot and using Haloscan comment, which is even harder to manage. Rajan is using WordPress (WP) 1.5.2, but seems like he is not fully utilizing the power of WordPress.

Setup WordPress to Moderate Stranger’s Comment

In WordPress “Discussion Options”, there is a section titled “Before a comment appears:“.

Tick the checkbox of “Comment author must has a previously approved comment”. This will make sure that comments from stranger (who does not has previously approved comment) are helded for moderation.

You may also go to extreme by moderate every submited comment by ticking the first checkbox in the section. Personally, I do not recommend this.

Thought:

As a responsible blogger, he/she should always check the comments in his/her blog. It is recommended to use blogging system with advance control over blog comments, e.g.: wordpress.

Update: the case has been discusssed at blogherald. [ Thanks, Lilian ]