6/08/2010

Dear Blogger (the platform, not the generic term for people who blog)

Would it be too much to ask that you have a setting that allows me, the blogger, to choose to disallow comments that are, let's say, in another language? Since I write only in English it stands to reason that I probably have mostly English-speaking readers and, therefore, English-speaking comment writers. (Or at least, English-speaking thinking about leaving a comment but can't really drum up the energy to actually do it but hey, I clicked over and read.) Now, I'll admit that I occasionally use a word in Spanish or French, or heck, even German, if one happens to crop up that fits in the space. But, well, still mostly just English.

I'd simply like the ability to deny access to the one frequent commenter who I just dislike on a huge scale: the Chinese Pron Spammer. This is the person (bot? Who knows...all I know is they do actually have a google id) who likes to leave long comments on my posts, in Chinese, mind you. And I, being idly curious, copied one into AltaVista's translator the other day only to want to go wash my eyes out with bleach. Cause yeah. Pron spam.

Instead, I have the option of deleting comments individually, not allowing comments, moderating comments, or making the only people able to comment be "participants" of the blog, which is really the same as not allowing them, except that I could then comment on my own posts even if no one else could...and I haven't yet reached that level of comment desperation.

In summary, if you're not going to police your platform enough to defeat the Chinese pron spam, couldn't you give me the tools to do so myself?

No comments:

Post a Comment