Scamming Top Commenter Lists With Threaded Comments
Pay attention, this is how we turn a personal gripe into a useful article for everyone 
.
Threaded Comments is a truly awesome invention ain’t it? It encourages easy to implement reply comments from not just the blog admin, but from other readers as well; a true community type atmosphere indeed!
I was a little late to the game, but when I finally got it, they were truly appreciated by all; especially me! Now I wonder why all bloggers with over a certain amount of comments per post don’t use it.
Top Commenter is another amazing addition to any blog, yes? Encouraging comments, replies, replies to replies and so on; much like threaded comments, but with one ultimate goal…..to be #1! It’s also quite awesome for contests. Hehe.
All good and fun, right? Yea, well…
All is well and good until the clever (or not so) get into the mix. These particular brain trusts aren’t much smarter then “normal” comment spammers, they just think they’ve hit the mother load with threaded comments.
If you have these two plugins on you blog, or regularly comment on others with them, tell me if any of these traits ring a bell for ya…
1. They appear maybe once per week or even less and leave a crap-load of comments all at once.
2. The largest percentage of their comments are ONLY replies to other comments. They rarely if ever comment on the post itself.
3. Both 1 and even 2 above might be OK if their comments had any substance; 9 outa 10 do not.
They are the same spammy crappy not-good-for-nuthin BS that we all hate in normal comments. The reason they think they found a warm home in threaded comments is simple - they believe if the commenter they responded to sees and replies before the admin can delete it, they’re safe.
After all, the admin wouldn’t delete multiple comments, right? Guess again.
***********************************************************
A word of caution to all awesome commenters here on DSWM. If you recieve anything that appears totally unproductive in a reply comment, don’t waste your time replieng back again. Both their “awesome comment!” and your “thank you” have a good chance of being deleted.
***********************************************************
Banter is good, awesome in fact! Blog community members should interact with each other as much as possible as it helps everyone grow. For this reason, I sincerely hope the few never outweigh the many; I would never want to give up either plugin on my blogs .
What do you think of all this?
Dennis
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Jaq @ Net Age Web Design
Kev
Latief@AnotherBlogger
sherry
April 20th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Good one Dennis. I’ve had a few that do this and I usually spam em, because that is what it really is. They come at the beginning of every month an leave a sleuth of useless comments and then they are off again. I’m hoping that if I spam the comments often enough that akismet will get the drift and take over spamming them for me.
Sire´s last blog post..Passive Income With Your Own Online Store
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:35 am
@Sire, The issue you speak of has been around since the beginning of the Top Commenter plugin, and yes very irritating.
I’ve noticed it’s just gotten worse with the Threaded Comments alongside it. Now they can come along any ‘ol time of month and leave another slew of useless comments as replies to other more useful comments.
Sire Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:23 am
@Dennis Edell, Luckily there is only a couple of users that I know who do it and I reckon I have them under control
Sire´s last blog post..The 10 Stages Of A Twitterer
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
@Sire, Hmm yes, I’m sure we could compare notes.
almir Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@Dennis Edell, But are the comments their leaving behind of value and lead to more conversation or are they all spammy? What I mean is, are they good comments but very vague in leading to conversation or are they really short comments that don’t have any real meaning behind them because I have noticed on my blog so far I haven’t ever really received any spam comments as their all very intelligent responses and you may already know the likes of them like Sire, Mitch and Salwa.
almir´s last blog post..Vital Tips That Can Aid Any Blogger
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 11:19 am
@almir,
I wouldn’t post bad things about good comments. It’s really simple in my eyes. Whether it’s 2 words or 500, if it’s adds nothing of value, it’s garbage.
This post however specifically deals with the fact that they are the usual spam crap like “great idea!” “love your thoughts!”, but instead of being directed at the article writer, they think they can get away with it by incorporating it into threaded comments and direct them at other commenters.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Yes that is what I am seeing as well. I’m not hiding that I comment on a lot of do-follow blogs because 1) I get the link but also 2) because I find the content interesting and related to my own.
What I do not get is that there are so many blogs with hundreds (if not several thousand) readers that allow these commenters to spam all over. I might be able to understand it on blogs with low PR and few readers but large blogs with many readers. It would happen on my blog, that’s for sure.
/Mikael
Mikael @ Retire Rich´s last blog post..How to Retire Early – I’ll Help You
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:39 am
@Mikael @ Retire Rich, Look a little closer at those blogs. Are the admins even paying attention to the comments? Replying to them? Probably not.
Another bad practice for sure, but a good reason why you’ll see what you see on those blogs.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Nice Dennis. I think it is risky business to spam someone’s blog given the popularity of Akismet as a spam filter. Being in Akismet’s spam filter is a nightmare to get out of. But heck, probably the same folks who entertain us with stupid crook video!
Colleen´s last blog post..Multi Family Homes or Property
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 am
@Colleen, Oh how I love those “dumbest” videos! LOL
April 20th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I get a good enough laugh at what askimet catches… then you have what you’re talking about, the ones that just want the name thrown in the hat haha…
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 am
@Jake, Exactly right. Their name gets thrown into somethin but it ain’t a hat!
April 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am
i comment when i can on other’s blogs, but i only frequent a few that interests me - the big “guru” “super affiliate” bloggers i dont really comment much because they hardly ever really get back at you with a reply - even when i straight asked them a question regarding what their blog post is about - no reply whatsoever -
akismet does a wonderful job with catchign spam- sometimes it does too good of a job - i had to approve alex’s comments but i think it got the idea and let alex in finally - wondering if there’s any tweaks or modifications that i can do to it.
i never would’ve looked at threaded comments as a way of spamming or getting the name out there - i just think its’ a simple and easy way to reply to those that comment before you - but again i never try to create any type of spam - but some view it different though - im going to look out for these “commenters” that try to spam - just a second ago someone left me a comment on a blog post and said it’s not spam but is promoting a product unlreated to my blog post then left a quick message afterwards “dont be an asshole and delete this” with a smiley face at the end! deleted!!
sorry i went on Dennis, but you’ve shown me a different way of looking at threaded comments now, from a different perspective.
Mirjam Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 3:59 am
@Pheak Tol, “just a second ago someone left me a comment on a blog post and said it’s not spam but is promoting a product unlreated to my blog post then left a quick message afterwards “dont be an asshole and delete this” with a smiley face at the end! deleted!!”
hahahahaha that was funny “hey dude this spam comment isn´t spam and you´re an ass if you delete it” hahaha
my 2 cents on the spam comments… let´s just not waste our time
Mirjam´s last blog post..Affiliate Marketer Back from Holiday
Alan @ Work At Home Resources Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 7:05 am
@Mirjam, I got that exact same comment yesterday! Funny thing is it was already caught by Akismet’s spam folder. Go figure!
Spammers obviously don’t have common sense.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources´s last blog post..A Better Alternative To Article Marketing? Give Free Traffic System A Try
almir Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 9:51 am
@Alan @ Work At Home Resources, well alan you have all kinds of people out there online, you have scammers,good people,murders,intelligent folks, I think no one should be surprised by the amount of people that abuse systems especially on others blogs or the comments they leave behind. If you go to several blogs and notice the top commentator list you will sometimes notice that the same person will make the top commentator list twice or possibly three times and under different names how I know this, I was at another blog and took interest to someone’s comment that they wrote and checked their site out I than went back to the previous blog and saw another comment I liked and it was the same site as the other commentator but he was using another fake name and surprisingly enough he was one of the top 2 people in the commentator list which now doesn’t surprise me anymore about people commenting.
almir´s last blog post..Vital Tips That Can Aid Any Blogger
Alan @ Work At Home Resources Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
@almir, It makes you wonder if the blog owner even cares or is even aware of what’s going on. No matter what systems and preventative measures we have in place, people will always try to game the system or find a way around it. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources´s last blog post..Blogger Steals My Content UPDATE
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 am
@Pheak Tol, No problem buddy, glad I could help!
I’ve gotten those comments as well; pretty funny. Akismet usually catches those for me.
almir Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 10:09 am
@Dennis Edell, But doesn’t askimet also have a hard time differentiating between what is a legit comment and what is a spam one because I have had people tell me at times that it does have problems. They said that askimet does have a hard time sometimes at filtering spam in which they do at times delete decent valuable comments. It’s specifically why I refuse to use it as I monitor it myself and only delete a comment if it isn’t relevant to the post and if it doesn’t add value to a post.
almir´s last blog post..Vital Tips That Can Aid Any Blogger
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am
@almir,
I would never advise disabling Akismet. It is one of the best spam filter plugins around, one of the most compatible with other plugins, and free with WP. It does it’s job very very well.
Of course, no one perfect so yes, from time to time it will catch a legit comment. I always advocate skimming the filter at least once per day…it’s not as difficult or time consuming as people may lead you to believe.
almir Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 11:31 am
@Dennis Edell, Thanks for clarifying this for me Dennis I always had my suspicions about Akismet.
almir´s last blog post..Vital Tips That Can Aid Any Blogger
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
@almir, Welcome my friend, glad I could help. Akismet is definitely a keeper, just keep a little eye on it.
Baltimore Ned Reply:
June 9th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
@almir,
>But doesn’t askimet also have a hard time differentiating between what is a legit comment and what is a spam
My understanding of how Akismet works is as bloggers label stuff as spam Akismet keeps track of the IP address. Akismet doesn’t know if it is a lousy comment or not. It only knows if the IP address has been lables a spammer by real human blog managers.
If I am wrong I would love to know otherwise.
Ned Carey
Baltimore Ned´s last blog post..So How Did You Do In the Tax Sale?
April 20th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I haven’t implemented threaded comments, but may eventually - specifically for this reason. It’s one thing to encourage commenters, but another to encourage the BS, and I figured this was too tempting for a new blog. If I enjoyed a post, and feel especially interested in what people have to say, often when a question gets raised by the poster, then I will ALWAYS read others’ comments. If those are interesting and provocative, then I’ll respond to those. I hate it when people don’t realize they’re on the road to spoiling a good thing.
Matty Byloos´s last blog post..Keith Richards “Nearness of You” Video
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:51 am
@Matty Byloos, First and foremost their spoiling themselves. No one is going to visit or recommend a site with an owner that spams crap.
Seriously though, if you think your comments are worth the plugin don’t hesitate like I did. The good still far outweighs the bad.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Is this the one that you are using?
Paulubiadas´s last blog post..Monetizing an entertainment blog
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 am
@Paulubiadas, I’m not sure of your question. I am using both the top commenter and threaded comments plugins…that’s what prompted this post.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
The same thing happens to me. I get generic comments that don’t even reference the post. It’s totally pathetic.
I’ve seen more and more comments on other blogs I follow that this happens to. If I was the owner of those blogs, I’d be hitting the “spam” button in a heartbeat.
What annoys me the most are comments that make no sense and have poor grammar. I usually delete them as well. If you can’t take the time to write a well thought out comment that sounds good, then it doesn’t deserve to be seen by others.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources´s last blog post..A Better Alternative To Article Marketing? Give Free Traffic System A Try
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:54 am
@Alan @ Work At Home Resources, Exactly right my friend, and that’s been around long before the added “goodie” of threaded comments.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 7:48 am
@Dennis Edell, Yes, indeed. I’ve had the problem long before I started using threaded comments. For this reason I manually approve all comments before they’re posted, plus I can then reply to any that are legit as I’m approving them.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources´s last blog post..Blogger Steals My Content UPDATE
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Alan @ Work At Home Resources, True we’ve all had it long before, this is them taking it a step further inside. I still think approving all is a bit drastic, but if it works for ya, go for it!
Just watch to see if you’re angering regular legit commenters by making them wait.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:43 am
@Dennis Edell, True, I didn’t think of that. I’ll turn it off and see what happens. Hopefully spam comments won’t slither their way through the cracks. I had one today that did.
Alan @ Work At Home Resources´s last blog post..Blogger Steals My Content UPDATE
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
@Alan @ Work At Home Resources, Akismet is quite good at catching the automated link type spam. Human spam as we’re discussing here can always slither through. You have to be ever vigilent in trying to identify it.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Well, I try to keep up with my reader and visit and comment on a regular basis, but I must admit that I do sometimes fall into the description in this post. I will occassionally read several posts all around the same time and comment on each of them as well as reply to several comments on each post…oops
Nick´s last blog post..Musings and Getting Back On Track After My 2009 First Quarter Hiatus
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:57 am
@Nick, Whoa Nick, I think you misunderstood, or took me too literally.
Commenting, replying to comments AND replying to other replies is awesome! As long as it’s not in a spammy “get me to the top of the list” kinda way, that’s all.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Personally I think it’s prudent to moderate all comments although I can understand that when a blog has perhaps fifty to many hundreds of comments per post it gets a little difficult. But of course it’s these type of sites that the spammers target to get free high PR links to their own sites.
Ken Nickless´s last blog post..Here’s A Quick Way To Start Home Business
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:03 am
@Ken Nickless, First off, welcome to the community! I don’t recall seeing you around before.
I may be a minority, but I don’t think there is “too many comments”; comments and the interaction within is what makes a blog what it is. I think the moderation of, and replying to comments should just be a task added to a bloggers schedule.
Did you happen to catch - http://www.directsaleswebmarketing.com/blog-comment-tip-respond-to-comments-or-risk-losing-subscribers/
April 20th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I have yet to get spammed on my blog this way and really happy I read this article to look out for spam like this.
KushMoney´s last blog post..My First Time Building TV Site
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
@Kush, Welcome aboard Kush, and glad I could help!
April 21st, 2009 at 4:16 am
I delete them all… better yet, if I’m in the mood I spam them.
Great warning.
It’s sure easy to be lazy, not read the post at all but, instead use the threaded comments to reply to another reader… you get to read 20 words instead of 200 and still look as though you are meaningfully commenting.
although, lately, if someone says “great post, I like what you did here…” on some of my older posts, I just let it be. who cares…
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com´s last blog post..Chillin at John Chow’s: How to Pitch a Guest Post
Mirjam Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 6:34 am
@Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com, hehe you are softening up … so sweet of you to leave those spammy comments go through … although I don´t understand why you would leave them on older posts and not on newer ones ….
Mirjam´s last blog post..How to Build a Review Site
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am
Somehow I only get those on much older posts…
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com´s last blog post..Chillin at John Chow’s: How to Pitch a Guest Post
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:26 am
@Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com, They target older posts for precisely that reason.
Honestly, if you run a do follow blog without something like Lucia’s Linky Love plugin, you should care. Eventually those posts may gain PR and then they’re just swiping it from ya.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:27 am
I like the post…
I look at the comment if i see that comment is not talking on the lines with the post, then i delete the comment.
Nihar´s last blog post..Download Ashampoo Music Studio 2009 - FREE
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:28 am
@Nihar, What if it is inline with the post, but adds nothing of value?
April 21st, 2009 at 4:42 am
The root cause of all evils is Google’s PR calculation based on do-follow links right? Comments just happened to be the carriers of that evil
Ajith Edassery´s last blog post..Latest innovation from Google Labs - News Timeline
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:28 am
@Ajith Edassery, Huh? What? lol
April 21st, 2009 at 9:38 am
You are right Dennis,
I am seeing this as well on my blog with mindless replies of “nice comment”, “thank you”, “lol” and the list go on. I didn’t took much note of it at the start but now days I just delete their comments!
I believe the only person who should reply with a “thank you” should be an author of that particular post as a little appreciation of the person who stopped by on their blog and commented like “thank you for stopping by” but other than that well it just doesn’t look good.
Salwa´s last blog post..Traffic Monday: Ways to Increase Traffic
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:30 am
@Salwa, Yep and 10 times worse with threaded comments when they’re saying “nice comment”, “thank you”, “lol” and so on to another commenter, just hoping it will slip through.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:00 am
Excellent post, I experience the same issue on my blog. I think its time for me to remove a few comments. I see a lot of criteria number 1 that you mentioned. They are usually not even a response to someone’s comment…sometimes its just a rehash of the comment they are replying to itself.
I’ll allow the obvious commercial comments to stick on my blog though if its apparent whoever left the comment actually read my article and responded with something relevant.
Susan @ Chicago Neurologist´s last blog post..Neurological Connection to Central Sleep Apnea
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 am
@Susan @ Chicago Neurologist, Oh yea, the “rehash” is classic. Copy a paragraph to make it look longer, THEN simply say, I agree!
Ugh.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:06 am
It is amazing how little effort many spammers take when making comments. I typically indiscriminately delete the “great post” or “I like your writing style” kind of comments. I find it interesting to observe though and watch the way the spammers operate though.
Personally, I find it really discouraging when I visit a blog that lets these kind of comments slide. Seeing a bunch of “great post” comments really makes me not want to invest too much time in the blog. At the same time, however, I feel bad for the blogger, because they might simply not realize whats going on. I have thought about discreetly telling them whats going on, but have never done it.
tiger´s last blog post..Symptoms of Diabetes and Ketoacidosis
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
@tiger,
Hey tiger, welcome back. I know what you mean; check out my response to Mikael (comment #2) and see if that rings a bell for the blogs you’re talking about also.
tiger Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
@Dennis Edell,
Yeah, I do come across those kind of blogs where you can tell they are just left on autopilot. To be honest though, I usually don’t invest too much time in those kind of blogs.
The one that really sticks out in my mind, however, actually takes the time to respond to comments. She just doesn’t seem to care that everyone on her top comment list does just what you said; Comes in, post three comments to the effect of “I really appreciate you telling us this great information,” and leave.
I am torn between mentioning it to her or ignoring it, because I do find the blog interesting and kind of feel like it would probably be stepping out of line…
tiger´s last blog post..Symptoms of Diabetes and Ketoacidosis
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:20 am
@tiger, If it really bothers you and/or you think it could end up ruining her blog then I’d mention it…tactfully. Male it all about her and how she may want to look closer at it.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Ah, I see that everybody is here
I think you Dennis for your feed back about my blog, you really helped me on that one.
I have added it to my list of 100 blogs using CommentLuv
keep the good work!
Hesham´s last blog post..Why I will ask Jeeves or be a Fan of his New Facebook Page?
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 am
@Hesham, I’m sorry, I’m not entirely sure what I said or did but glad I could help!
Thanks for the add to the list, I appreciate it.
Hesham Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:28 pm
@Dennis Edell, LOL, I am talking about your feedback when you wanted to subscribe to my RSS by email, because if you didn’t ask me about it, maybe I will never check it or think the form was not working, so you hepled me to fix a problem I was having on my blog
Good day, keep in touch!
Hesham´s last blog post..My Mixx Trophy Case of Awards
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:16 am
@Hesham, Ah OK, you’re quite welcome my friend. Glad I could help!
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 am
Finally, someone has spoken. It’s deemed to be the least spammy methods of maintaining the top commentator spot.
It’s live at Shoemoney’s and John Chow’s.
That’s a good one, Dennis.
Yan
Yan Susanto´s last blog post..Blog As An Online Reputation Management Tool
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:40 am
@Yan Susanto, Deemed that way by the spammers of course; ironically hilarious. lol Thanks buddy.
I personally don’t comment (nor really read) either of them, but good to know.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:50 am
Hi Dennis,
Threaded comments is something I’ve been thinking about for some time now. I haven’t seen too many blogs using them yet, so am still on the fence.
Although I don’t use “top commenters”, I do have a section in my sidebar (Who’s Talking) that shows the avatars (if they have one) of the last 15 commenters. It helps to get their faces out there, and is my way of thanking them, as well.
Barbara Swafford´s last blog post..Doing It All With Ease
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 am
@Barbara Swafford, I’ve been wishing since I met you that you would install threaded.
Despite the large amount of comments you now receive, I’m thinking they could easily triple…it would make your life responding to them a lot easier too.
Kim Woodbridge Reply:
April 30th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
@Dennis Edell, @Barbara - She should totally install them. She asked me about it and I said while my tutorial appears to be daunting I know that she can do it
Kim Woodbridge´s last blog post..Phishing Scams: My Facebook Experience and Reactions
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 am
@Kim Woodbridge, I think we can tag-team her successfully.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:22 am
I like the threaded comment a lot, not only because it make the all comment section “neater” but also because it’s much more convenient to follow up with questions, rather than having everything listed in chronological order where you have to wonder who is answering to who about what… and you don’t need many comments to have the situation very confusing…
On the other hand, I have no interest in the top commenter plugin. If people want to comment, good, if not, I’m not going to bribe them… I rather spend my valuable time answering and befriending people who are genuinely interested in what I write than people here for links or rewards…
Nicolas Prudhon´s last blog post..Should You Fear the New Link Velocity Algorithm?
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:45 am
@Nicolas Prudhon, I agree wholeheartedly on the threaded aspect and halfheartedly on the top commenter. lol
I’m all about giving back the love, and it really doesn’t take much outa me.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
Dennis,
You hit interesting point and one I managed to battle against by simply manually approving all new commenters. Once a person, such as yourself makes a few comments on my blog - you have your comments auto approved but I do control first time comments to avoid the very scenario you describe.
Spammers suck and comment spammers have a brain of a rain worm if they think they can get away with that BS on my blog :-0
Alex Sysoef´s last blog post..Do You Outsource Comment SPAMing?
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:33 am
@Alex Sysoef, The saddest part of it all is, some of the ones I described above are not exactly new..another reason I suppose they think they can get away with it.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I’ll have to take a look at Top Commenters again… I had a problem installing it the first time around, and just never got back to it.
I’m not sure why I’m against the threaded comments… some sites it definitely works great on, but with others, when there are one too many replies in replies, the design gets really strange.
Spammers are definitely getting crafty… I sometimes can’t tell if a comment is just short and sweet because it is someone new to English, or if it some kind of auto generated spam being commented all over the place.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post..Vacation Proofing Blogs and Social Networks
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:12 am
@Kikolani, I for one have been hoping you would go threaded.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:41 am
I have the top commenters plugin as well with threaded comments.I like to automate things as much as possible with blogging, but I like to control what kind of comments are posted on my blog so I manually approve all comments.
Tom - Home Business Marketing Tips´s last blog post..Uncle Sam Wants You To Succeed With Your Home Business
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:50 am
@Tom - Home Business Marketing Tips, ALL? Not just the first one or two? Wow.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:07 am
Have you tried the bad behaviour plugin, its supposed to cut down of spam comments quite effectively and can be used in conjunction with askimet. Maybe there should be a filter setup for targeting keyphrases such as “nice post”, “thank you” or other such comments that are polite but don’t actually contribute to the discussion.
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:49 am
@khaled, Nope, too many stories abound of how that plugin truly lives up to it’s name cause more harm then good. Akismet works perfectly for me in catching the kind of spam it does.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:12 am
I haven’t seen any comments like this yet…either that or I’m just naive and think it someone being nice.
Thanks for the heads up though!
Coree´s last blog post..Marketing For A Cause And Why It’s A Win For Everyone
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:35 am
@Coree, Keep your eye out!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:18 am
I had discovered top-commentator, used it, and loved it.
I also love bloggers who install it.
Cheers.
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:35 am
@Vic-BusinessAccent, Welcome aboard Vic!
April 25th, 2009 at 3:49 am
I was having quite a number of these lame comments too but somehow I’ve seen a dramatic decrease now ever since I switch my threaded comment plugin to Disqus. Not intentionally though. I was using Sezwho and pretty happy with it. But recently they stopped their service and I was forced to change. As luck would have it, I remembered a conversation I had with Yan that Disqus was pretty good and so I installed it. It seems Disqus uses some anti spam software that works in the background including Akismet. Anyway it’s still too early to sing too much praises for Disqus, but as of now I’m happy my spam comments are pretty controlled.
Peter Lee
Peter@passive income ideas´s last blog post..Blog Traffic- Top Tips To Increase Blog Traffic
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 7:27 am
@Peter@passive income ideas,
Did it also take away do follow and commentluv or are those gone or another reason?
Peter@passive income ideas Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 7:42 am
@Dennis Edell, Oh good question. Commenluv is not compatible to Disqus at the moment and that was something I was pretty upset when I first found out. But I understand that Commenluv is woking on a plugin to fix that real soon. But if there is one thing that more than made up for this is this. Since changing to Disqus, my page views have improved significantly and I can see from my admin page lots of traffic coming from Disqus. I still can’t understand why this is so but I’ve read about it and I’m seeing it on my blog. As for the dofollow part, I’ve yet to check. Thanks for reminding me. I’ll update you once I’ve found out.
Peter Lee
Peter@passive income ideas´s last blog post..Blog Traffic- Top Tips To Increase Blog Traffic
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 26th, 2009 at 9:08 am
@Peter@passive income ideas,
I should have known Andy would be all over the CL issue! LOL
I didn’t know discus was a site where others could also go to find blogs, is this what you mean by “I can see from my admin page lots of traffic coming from Disqus”?
April 27th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Hey Dennis, I didn’t know you were speaking at the Queens Marketing Association Conference! lol http://www.qmac.ca/speakers.php
Mitch´s last blog post..Six Things I’ve Learned About Affiliate Marketing
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 27th, 2009 at 7:40 am
@Mitch, I know I just turned 39, but that photo ain’t very fair. lol
I also have a friend named Jesse Jones, but I doubt SHE would like Jesse’s pic either. lol
Sire Reply:
April 27th, 2009 at 9:16 am
@Dennis Edell, Ah, so now I know who I am speaking too. Say how come you are so happy in that photo?
Dennis Edell Reply:
April 27th, 2009 at 9:21 am
@Sire, Funny guy. Wait, You know it ain’t me right? lol
Sire Reply:
April 27th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
@Dennis Edell, It’s not? Why do you guys keep doing this to me?
Mitch Reply:
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
@Sire, Because you’re so easy to put one over, Sire. lol
Mitch´s last blog post..What’s Happened To The Moustache?
Sire Reply:
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:27 pm
@Mitch, You know what they say Mitch, when you least expect it, then Whammy!
Mitch Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 12:09 am
@Sire, Who says that? Must be an Australian phrase. lol
Mitch´s last blog post..I’m In The Local Newspaper
Sire Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 12:18 am
@Mitch, Nope, I was actually going to write whammo, but the spell check said that was wrong and whammy was the best option.
Mitch Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 1:09 am
@Sire, Still not a phrase I’m familiar with, I have to say. Then again, remember that spell check doesn’t know every word in the vocabulary, so don’t trust that for everything.
Mitch´s last blog post..9 Posts You Should See - My Version Of Link Love
Sire Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 1:19 am
@Mitch, Sure, I know that, but i couldn’t be bothered looking for something more appropriate. Anyway, the moment’s gone now and it’s all pretty well irrelevant.
Mitch Reply:
April 27th, 2009 at 10:28 am
@Dennis Edell, Amazing where one will find things, isn’t it? I knew you’d enjoy the laugh. lol
Mitch´s last blog post..Linkshare
April 30th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I haven’t had many people just replying in the threads (well, except for Dennis )
but the replies seem to be useful. I do get the rush of people who comment at a ton at the beginning of the month and those who leave 7+ at one time. Very aggravating. And you know, we want people to read and comment because they find the content useful in some way. I don’t like feeling used.
Kim Woodbridge´s last blog post..Phishing Scams: My Facebook Experience and Reactions
Matty Byloos Reply:
April 30th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
@Kim Woodbridge, I find it hard to understand why A) more people don’t engage other readers in dialogue through the comment threads, as it seems like the next stage in community development, which is how many of these blogs function; and B) why people make such valiant efforts to comment at the start of the month, but then don’t stay consistent throughout. I work all month, so I am always at a computer. All 30 days of it. And if someone is posting good blogs, then I read consistently. And if I am reading, then I am thinking, so I leave comments in the hope that people will discover they are engaging, and feel inspired to continue blogging, thus keeping the circle going. Any analysis of this phenomenon on your end?
Matty Byloos´s last blog post..Don’t Smell the Floss Part 1: Story Breakdown
Sire Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
@Matty Byloos, Personally I find it is a lack of time. Like Kim I dislike the chatterboxes who don’t have much to say but say it an awful lot. They seem to have way too much time on their hands.
I on the other hand usually limit myself to a single comment, not because I don’t want to engage in the general conversation, but because lately I just don’t have the time.
Sire´s last blog post..Using Comments To Double Your Exposure
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
@Sire, Perfectly acceptable unless you ignore @sire comments.
Sire Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
@Dennis Edell, Man you kill me Dennis, and yet I keep coming back
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 am
@Sire, I would comment about cockroaches, but that would just be mean.
Sire Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 12:33 am
@Dennis Edell, OK? That went completely over my head yet once again. Where do cockroaches come into it?
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 9:18 am
@Sire, They never die. lol
Sire Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 4:31 am
@Dennis Edell, Sure they do, you just have to squish them
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Kim Woodbridge,
The largest percentage are useful, which is why I’m a long way from getting THAT ticked about it. Just watch for the individuals that may reply to just about every comment with similar to. “great comment!” “I agree with (name here)!” “way to go (name here)!” and so on.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Ugh, I hate comment spammers like that. People are always going to try to take advantage of systems put in place to reward nice people. And yeah, I realize the contradiction in saying I hate comment spammers and having a keyword in my name, but actually read and enjoy all the blogs that I comment on. If I’m going to comment, might as well us a keyword right? How do you feel about that?
Matty Byloos Reply:
May 21st, 2009 at 3:01 pm
@Grocery Coupons, Personally, I’m cool with that — though this is not my blog. I say, if you’re there in good faith, participating in the community and offering something of value to other members, why not completely optimize what you leave behind?
Matty Byloos´s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: 5.13.09 Honey Bees
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 21st, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Ironically you got caught by Akismet due to the name.
I feel fine about it as long as you put a real name before or after the keywords…..like it says in my comment policy linked below.
Smith @ Grocery Coupons Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
@Dennis Edell: oooooh, that’s embarassing. I can’t believe I missed that. That’s actually something I usually do. I was just a bit lazy I guess.
Dennis Edell Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
@Smith @ Grocery Coupons,
No problem and thanks!
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
scammers to win the monthly contest hahaha
Dennis Edell Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 7:57 am
@Michael, Oh I am trying ,y damnedest to be sure this don’t happen.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I realize that I never really commented on what this post was initially about; my bad. Truthfully, I haven’t really noticed as much of that; then again, I don’t get the volume of comments you do, so that might explain a lot of it. Still, you’re right, if a comment is tucked in the middle, we can still delete it, and it may leave a gap, but we’re fine with that.
Mitch´s last blog post..Best Free Software Two
June 4th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Well I perform this method only on one site(tech……) and it really helps to bring in visitors. But I always comment properly there..
June 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
One reason I don’t like threaded comments is because when I subscribe to the comments and click back to the blog, I have no idea where that new comment is.
In the case of this post it could be anywhere in the 113 comments above. It can take quite a bit of reading and scrolling to find the new comment.
Baltimore Ned´s last blog post..Review of Multifamily Millions by Dave Lindahl
Sire Reply:
August 8th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
@Baltimore Ned, It’s quite easy if you’re using Firefox, I just press alt F and search for my name. I’m sure the other browsers have their own version.
Baltimore Ned Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
@Sire,
Cool. I didn’t know that. It works (actually for me it was control F, took me a moment to find it)
Ned
Sire Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 12:41 am
@Baltimore Ned, No worries mate, you know me always willing to help out a fellow blogger.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
You have the point there Dennis, i agree to what you said…spammy comment should be deleted since they are not contributed ideas in the discussion and plug.is really helpful to the blogger..
gilbert´s last blog post..>>Move to Daisybones.com
October 30th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Nice post, Dennis. Now how to I make this post appear non-automated? Only joking! Don’t zap me.
I don’t approve comments at all on my blog unless they offer something to the conversation. Ok, it cuts down on my comment count but it’s also better for those that do visit that they don’t have to trawl through a lot of crappy two word comments.
Mal Keenan
Dennis Edell Reply:
November 1st, 2009 at 10:12 am
@Mal-Work at Home, Welcome to the blog! Does your policy work well so far?
Speaking of policies, please take note of how I edited your name field.
November 1st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I’ve just started out. So time will tell.
If I’m honest I have made the mistake of not paying much attention to comments in the past.
The only point I see in approving short comments that are only there for some link juice, is to inflate the comment count. If inflating the comment count works to encourage more comments then it may be worth doing. What you think?
Sorry bout the name field. I will add my name from now on.
Mal
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
@ Mal
>The only point . . . is to inflate the comment count.
I don’t see the point of inflating the comment count. Sure it makes me feel good to have more comments but if they are bad comments that I have approved aren’t I just fooling myself?
How many comments a blog has does not affect whether I comment or not. In fact for me, waiting for the comments to load and scroll down, may be enough for me to click away.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:18 am
comments must match with human behavior, if comment word is less then for example 3 words or unreadable or contain any unnecessary words or sentences that doesn’t related with the post.
My be wp spamfree is usefull for it, just advice
November 9th, 2009 at 9:30 am
I don’t like commenting to the blogs because after submiting my comment i don’t know where to fine my post.I approve of comments because it reflects what we think.
Dennis Edell Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
@Tiens shop, Welcome to the community! I appreciate you dropping by (on multiple posts
) and hope to see you around again.
In the future please help me and yourself by ensuring proper linking of you name. Check the comment policy linked right above the comment box at the bottom and be sure to include a real name before your keywords. Thanks!
.
Now, what do you mean by “after submitting my comment i don’t know where to fine my post.”? How do you lose it?
Approving comments is great, as long as it’s a useful comment.
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
It is obvious to me that when we combine threaded comments and Top Commentator plugins that we have to be less forgiving of weak comments and far more willing to unceremoniously delete every useless comment that “drops” in.
That is my plan when Derek installs Top Commentator. This post reminds me that I wonder if you can blacklist spammers in the Top Commentator plugins? I bet you can’t yet; however, wouldn’t that be a nifty new feature to have?
Dennis Edell Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
@GrowMap @Internet Strategist,
Yes indeedio, use the one I use - http://webgrrrl.net/archives/my-top-commentators-widget-quick-dirty.htm
December 6th, 2009 at 2:42 am
If you go to several blogs and notice the top commentator list you will sometimes notice that the same person will make the top commentator list twice or possibly three times and under different names.
Dennis Edell Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
@deodorant perspirant,
First, welcome to the community! I don’t recall seeing you around before (my apologies if I’m wrong). Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it and I hope to see you around more often.
Second, by not providing a real name in the name field, I had to fish your comment from the spam filter and de-link your URL. In the future please help yourself and I by ensuring proper linking of your name.
Check the comment policy linked right above the comment box at the bottom and be sure to include a real name before your keywords. Thanks!
.
I have noticed and it does them no good as I de-link them also.
December 10th, 2009 at 4:23 am
I think it doesn’t feel fair that someone comes to your blog and instead of commenting on the posts you have there, he comments on a comment made by someone else.
But in a way it some sort of shows the person interest in the topic and from the reply he leaves on someone’s comment, you can figure out his opinion on what you wrote.
Dennis Edell Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 9:30 am
@Reviewsgoldmine, It’s perfectly fair and fine as long as it adds to the discussion, I do it all the time also.
Please add your real name to the name field in front of your keywords.
December 10th, 2009 at 4:30 am
I find the idea of classifying Top comments fascinating. That way people would feel motivated and would not just leave anything in the name of comment and also they would be want to visit each time to see if they fall among the top comments. Like me i would want to visit each day to find out where i fall.
December 15th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Those spammers really useless to good bloggers. They will dilute the quality of the blogs and turn off serious readers.
scheng1´s last blog ..How to develop psychic abilities
December 28th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Do you have any suggestion for a plugin for top commenters? I also want to put one in my site. thanks
Rian´s last blog ..Become an Online Freelance Writer – Real Internet Jobs
Dennis Edell Reply:
December 28th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
@Rian,
Yep! This is the one I use with lots of nifty back end features for the admin - http://webgrrrl.net/archives/my-top-commentators-widget-quick-dirty.htm
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Again - Pick My New Domain Names With A chance To Win $10!