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Should The URL Dictate Publishing Comments?

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So far, there has been quite the discussion taking place on a recent post here on Performancing (Pros And Cons Of The URL Field) with many excellent points being made. However, a comment written by Ami Ohayon made me stop for a moment to think. In her comment, she states that:

I don’t think the URL necessarily renders a comment inappropriate. Surely the judgment is about the quality of the comment, regardless of the link.

If the comment is spammy, spam it. If not, it’s adding to the conversation regardless of where it came from, no?

I tend to disagree. Regardless of how relevant the comment is in relation to the post, if I feel that the URL provided by the individual is a questionable site (possibly spam) I am going to spam it. Perhaps I have been brainwashed, but if I receive a comment that is relevant to my post and the URL links back to a website which is strictly for a product or a service, I automatically send it to Akismet as spam. The difference between obvious spam and this form of spam is that the message was written by a human to the point in which the comment would be published. Now, if the URL links back to a personal blog or if I can somehow identify the site as being owned by the person who left the comment (and the site does not look like a marketing ploy) I’ll publish the comment.

The way I see it, I have the ability to control what is and is not published on my blog. Do I choose relevancy over quality? I’m not only doing things this way for my benefit, but for those who frequent my blog and participate in my community. I don’t want them clicking on user URLs which are nothing more than marketing gimmicks.

At any rate, that is how I feel about this particular subject but it is now time for you to sound off in the comments.

How To Save Time Commenting On Blogs

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One thing I enjoy doing when I browse through the hundreds of news items in my feed reader is commenting on blog posts. However, entering my name, url, and email address each time I want to do so becomes a pain. Taking a page out of a spammers book, I have solved this dilemma by using a Firefox extension known as Autofill Forms. This extension has more features than I know what to do with but I’ll explain how to simplify things down so that you can use this time saving extension to comment on blogs.

Once you install the extension, a default profile will be generated for you. I recommend creating a new profile and call it BlogCommenting. This profile will only contain the rules necessary to comment on blogs. Typically, the fields used on many of the blogging sites across the web are labeled Name, Email, and URL. As you can see from the following screenshot, I already have these fields configured so that when I press Alt-J which is the Autofill Forms keyboard shortcut, it automatically fills in those fields with these configured values.

To add field rules to your profile, check out the How To Add A Specific Field Rule Form Field wiki page for detailed instructions. Once this plugin is configured, blog commenting is as simple as pressing Alt-J on the keyboard and then typing out my comment. I have to mention the fact that this process does not work for every commenting form that is available. For instance, this extension has no effect on the fields presented in Disqus or third party commenting systems. For most everything else though, this extension ends up saving me a ton of time over the course of a year. Combine this with the fact that you can add as many form field rules as you want and you have yourself a real winner here.

This article is an entry for the Perfcast Blogging Challenge as mentioned in episode 5. To have your entry viewed by David and I, leave a comment with a link to your entry on the Perfcast episode 5 blog post. You may be the entry we review on the next episode.

Live Interview With DebNg Of FWG Via Perfcast

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DebNg who is the owner of FreelanceWritingGigs.com will be our special guest this Thursday at 7 P.M. EST on Perfcast. The interview will discuss aspects of monetization, applying for a blogging job, and of course, freelancing in general. Deb should be with us for about 40-45 minutes so come prepared with your questions as you’ll be able to ask them to her live either through the chat or by calling into the show. If you can’t make it to the live recording, leave a comment on this post with your question and I’ll do my best to get it on the air.

You can call into the show a few different ways. The first way is by using a cellphone, landline or SkypeOut and dialing (724)444-74444. The talkshoe prompt will welcome you to Talkshoe and asks you for the Talkcast ID number. The ID number for Perfcast is, 24073. After you type in the number, hit the # sign. For some of you, you’ll need to enter in your PIN. Your PIN number is usually your phone number or whatever number you assigned during the account creation process. If you don’t have a PIN Number, you can still dial in as an anonymous user.

When you call into the show, you will automatically be muted. If you are calling in to discuss a particular news topic or have something to say, please press *8 as this will initiate the Request To Talk feature which the host of the show will see. When you hear Talkshoe tell you that you have been unmuted, that means you are on the air.

The actual room opens up at 6:45 P.M. EST so be sure to get in early to grab a good seat.

Weekly Link Dump Four

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Based on previous link dumps, it would appear as though you folks appreciate these types of posts. Therefor, I’ll continue to do them as long as you continue to enjoy them. As I’ve mentioned in previous link dumps, I have a ton of stuff in my RSS reader and I can’t possibly blog about every single item. For whatever reason, many blog authors scoff at the thought of linking out to so many different places but I think it builds community. At any rate, lets go around the horn.

Batch editing for posts and pages is officially in WordPress 2.7

We Are Who We Were – Thoughtful post by Liz Struass highlighting the fact that the past is who we are.

Know Your Performance Numbers – Lorelle Van Fossen expresses what she learned from the How To Hire A Professional Blogger For Your Business session at the Blog World Expo. Looks like bloggers have to know just as much about perfomance numbers as the blog owner in order to figure out what it takes to make money.

Old Media Purchasing And Syndicating New Media – ReadWriteWeb, Venturebeat and other GigaOmni network properties will be syndicated in the NYTimes Technology channel. That is impressive.

Twitter 101 – Connie Bensen describes how to find interesting people on Twitter, building a community through Twitter and also mentions the various brands on the service.

Entrecard Banned By StumbleUpon – Entrecard looks like they barked up the wrong tree as the Quick Online Tips blog discovers that the entire EntreCard domain has been blocked.

New Guidelines in store for bloggers in the Army – If you’re in the Army, blogging or conversing in online forums is not the wild wild west. Looks like there are new guidelines in store to differentiate what is and what is not acceptable for members of the military to write about.

How Friendly Will A URL Ever Be? – Sam Phillips tackles the subject of friendly URLs but the post seems to focus more on domains than URLs.

FireFTP – The Best FTP Client I Have Ever Used

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Before we get to the meat of the post, I have to admit that until I discovered Firefox and then FireFTP, I had used IE for as long as I can remember. However, even after I finally switched to Firefox, there was one feature that IE had that kept me using the darn thing and that was the built in FTP client. The built in FTP client in Internet Explorer was convenient to use when compared to dedicated FTP software. Despite its convenience, the client was far from reliable. For small files, IE fit the bill but for larger files, IE usually ended up timing out on me with no ability to resume. What a pain in the rear. Thus, I had to find an alternative. Over the course of a week, I ended up installing and then using CuteFTP, FileZilla, BulletProof FTP, and finally SmartFTP. Each one of these software solutions had their own problems which kept me from using them full time. For example, one client would upload files slower than molasses with no support for multi file uploads while another client would not exclude the public_html when linking to a file. This resulted in a lot of time wasting energy removing extra paths from a simple image URL. Introducing my saving grace, FireFTP.

FireFTP is an extension for FireFox which adds an FTP client to the browser. A great feature to have considering that is what kept me from using anything else besides InternetExplorer. Here is why I love FireFTP. For starters, it is added to the browser which means there is one less piece of software installed on my system. It is fast, supports multi-file uploads and includes resume support shall anything happen during the upload process. Another cool feature that FireFTP has is that you can configure the client so that the public_html is automatically taken out of links from a specified directory. Here is a screen shot of this specific dialogue box that should help explain what I mean.

Since I routinely hard link to images I have uploaded to the FTP server, this little feature is a major time saver as I no longer have to remove public_html from the URL. When FireFTP is activated, it’s loaded into a normal browser tab. The configuration is setup so that the left side of the screen deals with local activity while the FTP directories are on the right side of the screen. Uploading files is as simple as selecting them on the left side and then dragging the selected files into a directory on the right side of the screen.

I usually set the left side of FireFTP to display my desktop as that is where all of the images that I save from the web are stored. Once they appear on the desktop, I simply drag them from one side into the appropriate folder, right click on them and select COPY URL, then choose HTTP. I then can paste that link into whatever blog post I’m writing. It may sound complicated or time consuming but it’s really not. With FireFTP and a few other specific extensions, FireFox is my killer app for productivity. Although I am starting to use Windows Live Writer more than ScribeFire, combining ScribeFire along with FireFTP really is a productive combination.

FireFTP is free for download and is currently at version 1.0.2. I use it on FireFox 2.0.17 and according to Randa Clay, the extension also works on FireFox3. This is by far the best FTP client I have ever used and recommend it to anyone who feels that their dedicated client is not up to par. If you use something else, let me know in the comments.

Community Members Site Up For Sale

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Those of you who participate in the Hive forum may know her as Katyinlasvegas. She is the one behind the domain, http://www.imbloggingthat.com Well, word has come around that she has put the domain up for sale and is currently looking for buyers. The domain has a pagerank of 4 and an Alexa Rank of 81,319. The content published within the site features some of Katy’s personal musings but also contains many topics related to blogging such as writing, pagerank, SEO, etc.

For more information about the domain or if you are interested in purchasing the site, please get in touch with Katy.

Perfcast Episode 5 Ready For Consumption

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Episode 5 of Perfcast is boxed up and ready for you to unwrap! In this episode, David returns as co-host and describes his experiences at the Blog World Expo. We then dive into this weeks news, round things off with our blogging job of the week and hammer out the show with our new blogging challenge.

LISTENER FEEDBACK – None

PREVIOUS EPISODE COMMENTS – None

Each week, David and I like to look at the jobs available in blogging and related industries. We cover jobs that catch our eye, and hopefully don’t pay too poorly. We will feature one of these jobs on each episode of Perfcast.

BLOGGING JOB OF THE WEEK – b5media is looking for technology and beauty and fashion bloggers, so its more like JOBS of the week with seven openings. http://jobs.problogger.net/view/1663 http://jobs.problogger.net/view/1662

BLOGGING CHALLENGE ENTRIES FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEK:

Rob White – http://www.nmpnetwork.com/2008/09/13/review-audacity-free-audio-editor/

David Peralty – http://xfep.com/technology/ipod-touch-quick-review/

Jeff Chandler – Didn’t participate, shame on him!

BLOGGING CHALLENGE – The challenge this week is to write a HOW-TO. How To articles are not only good linkbait material, but they generally also serve as good search engine traffic thanks to the words "How To".

The blogging challenge is provided as a means of challenging yourself with a specific duty each week. David and I will be participating in each challenge and will be highlighting various entries from the previous challenge. To have your entry viewed by David and I, leave a comment with a link to your entry on this blog post. You may be the entry we review on the next episode.

LENGTH OF EPISODE – 1 Hour and 24 Seconds

NEXT EPISODE – Thursday October 2nd, 2008 at 7 P.M. EST

ITUNES – Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode5.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 5 OF PERFCAST:

Pros And Cons Of The URL Field

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Mark from WeblogToolsCollection.com recently touched on a subject that I think all bloggers are having to deal with and that is, human created comments with links to questionable sites. I’ve been seeing these types of comments increase in regularity here on Performancing as well as my own blog. The comments appear relevant to the article but when you check out the URL field, things are not quite as they seem. So, unlike comments that can be immediately identified as spam via their content, larger websites are having to spend more time in the moderation queue because of these human entered relevant comments.

Andrew Rickmann left the following comment on the WLTC article,

This kind of spam, and in fact all spam, is a symptom of the misguided(IMO) approach to comments that says that a commenter should be ‘rewarded’ with a link that gives google juice.

I don’t agree with this. The fact that I am commenting here says nothing about my website and shouldn’t entitle me to any search engine benefit. It is enough that real humans can find my site and fine out more about me.

The best answer to comment spam is for everyone to stop linking out. When the benefit is gone then the spammers will go elsewhere.

This comment was the basis behind the poll we recently conducted here on Performancing.com. I began to wonder, who would continue to comment on blogs if the URL field disappeared?

So far, 32 people have voted that they would while 22 people would not. I am still wondering if I could kill two birds with one stone via this approach. The lack of a URL field would eliminate comments from those looking to have a quick link back to their site published on my blog. Also, human written comments which appear relevant but then use the URL field to link back to their questionable website would disappear because the incentive is gone. Some would argue that the human spammers would then move their URL into the content.

Pros And Cons:

The Pros of removing the URL field:
The incentive to comment just to get a link back is gone which should decrease the amount of spam.
Software which creates a database filled with blogs in which to comment on should stop listing your blog.
Instead of receiveing human spam that ends up being worthless because of what they linked to, the removal of the URL field should encourage legitmate comments.

The Cons Of Removing The URL Field:
Plugins such as CommentLuv which parses the last known blog post from the URL provided within the comment will not work.
People will be unable to check out a commenters blog

The bottom line is, I need to experiment with this setup and report back the results. So, I will be doing an experiment on my own blog where I will remove the URL field from the comment section for the month of October and then report back my findings. If anyone else feels daring, I encourage you to participate in this experiment on your own blog as we can then compare our findings together in a follow up conversation.

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