If we don’t hear from mussweelo that it’s not in fact spam, by leaving another comment here, then the rest of us decent blogging folk can resume back to being contributors who respect one another.

Can’t say I’m a huge fan of moderated blogs, but I appreciate that they have to exist in these situations. I would hope that even if I posted something derogatory about a brand, I would at least receive a response from the brand.

Moderating, as jted points out, has its benefits. And while I was very tempted not to include Luis Vieira’s comment about women’s underpants, I choose to leave it. Why? Because I can back it up with fact. A good brand can always back itself up. If it can’t then, as Ryan points out, why bother?

Censoring is the same thing. Why bother if you’re not going to be open about it?

Fact: I haven’t worn women’s underpants in years.

So….will you moderate that one….or not?

jted, agree with your reasons for moderating; they’re technical in nature and they keep things relevant. The question is: Aside from spam, do you edit any of those comments? Do you delete what you do not want anyone to see? My guess would be no. Why? Because you have decided to join a real community of openness.

1) Spammers. If I didn’t have to approve the comments, people would post unrelated links to all kinds of garbage. It would make the comment section like wading through raw sewage.

2) Trolls. There are always idiots who just want to disturb things. They don’t want to be part of the conversation, they just want to f*** things up, be inappropriate, and ruin things for everyone else.

There’s a fine line, obviously, between posting uncomfortable things you disagree with and censorship. But the visitors will ultimately decide if you are doing a fair job or not. If I go to the Coke conversation and find it all sterile and one-sided with lots of dogma, I’m not going to be interested, and the community will eventually fail (or never even get started).

Coke (and all corporations) have to decide if their brands are ready or appropriate for a real community of openness and candid conversation.

That said, a company entering social media who was moderating comments just because they didn’t want to defend their actions or wanted to command and control the conversation should just stay out of it. There’s a big difference.

In real life, if someone in a conversation starts spouting crap off the top of their heads that’s uneducated and annoying to everyone, I cut them out of the conversation. I see no problem with companies doing the same on their blogs.