Saving moderating time

Part of running a community-centric blog is moderating the comments. I mentioned that it is a time consuming task when I gave the reasons for moderating so today I’m sharing some ideas for saving time when moderating comments on your blog.

In no particular order, here are my tips:

1. ensure you have a spam filter on your blog so the really obvious spam is off your list to moderate
2. consider outsourcing the comment moderation. However, make sure you still look often so you can reply to any comments or have your support person tell you if there is a comment waiting for your reply
3. set up some rules so certain people’s comments are automatically accepted – they see their comment instantly and you save a little time. You may do this for a select group or perhaps for everyone who has had a comment accepted in the past
4. have a procedure that includes rules for your blog as this will save you time in deciding if a comment is acceptable. For example, they must have a real name not a tagline as their username, use a real URL not a shortened URL and can only include a link if genuinely adding to the conversation.