Venture capitalist and blogger, Guy Kawasaki, schools us on closed system commenting.
“Moderated comments” is an oxymoron. If your company is trying to be a hip, myth-busting, hypocrisy-outing joint, then it should let anyone comment.
The concept that people have to be invited to post comments is pathetic—if you hold yourself out as a big cojones company, then act like it. Even the concept that one has to register to post a comment is lousy. There have been many times that I started to leave a comment on a blog but stopped when I realized that I’d have to register.
I’m with Guy on this, but I also understand the need to exert some level of control. Of course, the delete button may be the best measure available to site administrators/editors.
While I think that many companies should open their comments up, the amount of comment spam that blogs can get is enormous. I have to turn off my comments every few months, just to get cycled off of the spambots. Hopefully we’ll come up with a better system, one that’s open but stops the crap at the same time.