I have just a couple of sites that I keep watch on, but I find that someone with moderator control needs to be regularly checking.
At the TaxLoopholes First Class Lounge Forum, largely because it’s a subscription based model, there isn’t that much moderation needed. We don’t get hit with the spammers. I did have a problem with trackbacks on the blog for really inappropriate sites. A couple of TL watchers caught it right away and sent emails and Private Messages so we could block the IP addresses that were sending them. So far, anyway, we haven’t had any more trouble.
Jorge and I are the moderators on this B-I blog. He set it up so that all new commentators have to be approved. Their first post is held until a human being (Jorge or I) read the post and decide if it’s appropriate. I supposed now that I’ve published our secret someone might send a very innocent post the first time through, then hit us with spam. But, we’re both paying close attention, with our trigger finger on the delete button, so I think we’d catch it quickly.
I was just cruising around blogs (I frequently search “blogs” for key words to get ideas of things to blog about or post on the forum, or just to see what others are talking about). There are real gems in some of the off the beaten track blogs. By the way, I always read food blogs in cities I’m visiting and for where I live. We’ve found some great restaurants that way. Anyway, I have seen a lot of the quieter blogs have trouble with trackbacks. Similar to what happened to me the first time through with TL, sites will link to the content filled blog and take you off to porn, viagra or other such sites that I wouldn’t want to be linked to.
If you have a blog or a forum, make sure you keep a constant eye on trackbacks and comments. You could end up with some unwelcome visitors.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Great reminder!
As a tanget, could I ask the status of the B to I forum? I looked last week, and on my computer I could not see a way to add to a thread.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Thanks for the question. There wasn’t a lot of activity at the forum (as in practically none) and so took it down, at least for now.
My thought was to see if I could build some organic traffic here with the blog and then put it back up.
A dead forum is (in my opinion) worse than no forum. So I didn’t want it sitting out there.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Makes sense.
I have seen some folks posting on other blogs, and instead of a name they have words like “Comment on my do-follow blog”. Guess that may be their intention– to build up traffic on their site, in exchange for giving someone a link back to that person’s blog.
I was never quite sure what was in it for the site owner.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am
The more links, the higher your rating on Google. But the guy who wins biggest is the guy with the link who doesn’t get many visits anyway. So, if I could get Yahoo to link to me, that would be huge, for example.