Commenting on comments!

[Stephen Cleary]

Every one of the regular bloggers has had to put up with a few negative comments at thai-blogs even poor old Richard!

I for one too have received my fair share! I say fare share but still....not exactly that many.

Unlike forums where any silly negative comments will soon fall into the archives and out of sight, those on blogspots are there in ready view for years ahead.

Negative comments are pretty all right as long as they are well thought out and not just blatantly written from the top of the head. I for one has had to delete a few comments over the year, just silly ones like from folks who haven't understood my style of writing, ie... they come through on a feed, read a single blog and posted a 'naff' comment.

Poor old Wit (Thaiphile) had to suffer (after writing up a huge blog!) a first comment (written by Diego) along the lines of 'Very poorly written etc....' I for one suggest just deleting such a 'naff' comment as it was only written to 'wind the author up'.

This is the second time the following has happened:

This morning i woke up to this:


Cat [Visitor]
I know you mean well but I do find some points a bit insulting. You make it sound like all proper Thai girls are submissive miss little sunshines. We are not always thinking of getting married or being a good wife. I know this list is appropriate for dating "proper Thai women" but please don't assume that all of us are total airheads. Saying that we fear chocolates and love washing and cleaning for men is very insulting.
2006-02-05 @ 23:54 · Edit

Of course this author wrote that out of the blue!

[Khun Don]

Yeah -I saw that comment as well, Steve. I put it down, at best, to a somewhat juvenile attempt to be "controversial" to get people to visit her blog, and, at worst, blog trolling. Either way, I did not bother to visit her blog, and, from what you say, I did not miss anything of interest.

[paul_au]

I always appreciate your Blog's Steve, keep up the good work.

[Stephen Cleary]

Just checked out this girls website again and she has just written a raving review about thai-blogs!

She complained that a lot of other Thailand websites are disrespectful about Thai woman (dont disagree about that!)

Reads now that the first ever blog she read there was my one on 'Dos and Donts Proper Thai Girls' and automatically presumed that i was demining of Thai girls (like another couple of websites she had read before).

Reads like she is real anti naughty-minded farang.

So, after she had a good thorough look through thai-blogs this afternoon, she has changed her mind and we are now one of the best Thai related blogsites on the 'Net' that stays clear of girlie issues!!

Seems she is best of buddies with another blogger at thai-blogs! If thats so, i hope you agree its not too smart to start off with flaming the most regular there is behind the webmaster himself.

What sparked me off was that i spend half my life promoting Thailand to foreigners and especially Thai women! I dont know just how many hours of my life have i spent teaching newbie foreigners about Thai women and putting them in bright light. If youve read a lot of my posts in these forums youll know exactly what i mean.

[iGotNoTime]

Sawatdee is it possible for the Registered Writers or the senior writer's to have the ability to moderate their own comments? I don't know how the system works and obviously not all posts should be able to be moderated or rather not all writers should be able to delete any comment they want. But at times some people are a target and surely you have plenty to do on the forums, so I doubt anyone would like to add to your task list.

Is that possible or not a feature you have seen thus far in the particular system you use?

[Richard Barrow]

Do you mean on the blogs? Yes, they can edit and even delete comments made by other people on their blogs. If they cannot then please let me know.

[Stephen Cleary]

Thai-blogs seldom gets any negative comments so there hasn't been much of a need for moderation. Richard has had to deal with a lotta spam recently though.

If i see spam coming up on my blogspot then i save Richard a job and delete it myself.

Even if a blogger has the ability to delete a comment, it has usually been read that much anyway that it would like kinda silly if he deleted it as a lotta folks would notice.

In my opinion, the only comments i have had to delete were just 'naff' ones, just someone having a 'wind up'.

Let me give you an example igotnotime:

I wrote a blog on doing a meditation course and received a comment once that went something else. "Meditation is waste of time, such practice will only lead you to hell and thats where all Buddhists go, only The Lord can save you". Such a comment in opinion, is unsuited to thai-blogs and ought to be deleted.

Siamjai has had a lotta folks commenting unhappily with some of his stuff, especially his anti-alcohol stance - but that has lead to some interesting debate. All right....now and then...

Everyone of us had at once time in their 'forum life' posted a comment and then regreted it!!

This has happened before at thai-blogs, one poor man really went for me once (long time back) after he misunderstood my intentions. A couple of regulars and even a previously very quiet regular (ome these, often appear our of the blue) really laid into the guy. Later he wrote twice personally to me apologizing. I kinda felt sorry for the guy cause he admitted that after he posted it he realized his mistake but couldnt delete the comment cause the system doesnt allow it - this is one flaw in the system, post a comment and you cant edit or delete it.

[BUCKY]

Hi Steve,
Mind sharing this Thai lady's website?
Don't worry about it... in my personal opinion, I think u're one of the very few farang (no offense :p) thanchart who really understand Thai culture and in fact, merge into the system so well, u're almost like a Thai. U're able to look into the whole Thai system from a third party point of view but at the same time, able to accept and live so well in it...

Don't worry about it.

cheers..
ps. did i tell u i love reading ur blogs? hehehehe

[SiamJai]

Yeah Steve, I saw that comment on your blog too. I was just as surprised, because I can't imagine how anyone can read that sorta thing into your blog. But I've also been misunderstood more times than I can count, so I guess it's just part of the game.

Siamjai has had a lotta folks commenting unhappily with some of his stuff, especially his anti-alcohol stance - but that has lead to some interesting debate.

Yeah, never been a crowd pleaser, I just put things down as they are. If folks like it, good, if they don't - just as well. Actually, I enjoy when debates start as a result of my writing - everyone needs a bitta out-of-box thinking sometimes! As long as the debater approaches the matter in a respectful manner, I'm all for it. That's why comments on that New Year blog could go on for such a long while.

You mentioned Diego here, now that guy was just looking for trouble, for sure. Wit is too much of a nice guy, so he let him ramble on there, but then Diego made a mistake and started to pick on me. We brought him back to reality swift and hard.

I too, noticed the flood of spam there. Not from the actual page though - Richard deletes the junk very quickly - but only through email notifications. On the rare occasion I still catch a spam comment, I delete it. However, when it comes to really persistent ones, I edit their comments instead of just deleting them. Steve, you should try that sometime; if a jerk turns out to be really annoying, just edit his comment, using as much creativity as possible.

[iGotNoTime]

Sorry I thought you were asking about the Author (you) being able to remove the 'Praise the lord' spam, but you meant the original poster being to remove or edit their comments? First I doubt after typeing Praise the lord, that personality would never feel the need to remove it. I have used several system and none of them allow for comment editing.

Imagine comment edit in the hands of the spammers! one day they advertise and call names, they edit the next day and compliment with no ads, then back again. It would be a terrible order I think. Too imagine the way discussions are carried out through comments, a disagreement occurs and the admin or even the author does not know who really said what, all they know is alot of people are angry, and then we are again a hack target.

Just my thoughts though, nothing too valuable. I just think that the leaders of blogging, such as yahoo, google and so forth have such rules for a reason and it would be wise for use to model ourselves after them.