Pavlina: Life is Not For the Living

As they say, s*** or get off the pot. I went to the website of a podcast the other day. I wanted to leave a comment. You know, most people use a blogging tool on their website, and this is also very popular with podcasters as they can write a blog entry for their show notes and their listeners can leave feedback in the comment section, just the same way it is with us lowly bloggers.

I can understand fear of comment spam. Really. I control my own in a very low tech way. When I get a comment, I look at it. If it is spam or evil I delete it. I don’t get many hits on my site, granted. But even if I got 20-40 comments a day, I would suck it up for the convenience of my listeners/readers and I would rather make it easier for them to leave me feedback than for me to install all these security features to make my life easier. Just saying.

Manic Mommies is the name of the podcast. I was already on the fence about this podcast. Sometimes they have some good info, but I can find the same info other places as well. They also seem rather narrow minded about some of their views on child rearing. I won’t go into details, but live and let live does not seem to be their creed. When a parent would do things they would not, they are always surprised. Whatever. If I like your site I will tell my friends about it. If I hate I will tell everyone about via this post right here. So right now I am saying, I do not recommend this podcast. I listen to maybe 30 podcasts and this is the only one that requires it’s listeners to register on their site. And it’s not even all that.

Like I was saying, I wanted to leave a comment. So I filled out the standard comment form: name, e-mail, website and comment text. DENIED. I need to REGISTER. Oh HELL NO!!!! I have to register on about a million web sites as it is and I will be damned, double damned and triple damned if I am going to register to use a blog or a podcast site PERIOD! Make it easy for me, your listener/reader. If, instead, I have to go all twentieth century and e-mail you, then get a barely concealed snarky response back:

As for comments on our web site, the registration
feature is a necessary evil in this age of spam bots.
Believe it or not, they have figured out how to spam
website comment features. Since neither Kristin nor I
want our site cluttered with #&$#%@ we need the
registration to prove a human is typing a message.

Annoying, I know.

And this is the reply I sent:

Actually, I don’t think I will keep listening. Your first priority needs to be your listeners and not your own convenience. The burden lies with you and not with me, your listener. It should be easier for me to leave you a comment on your site. I understand comment spam, I have my own site. I deal with it like everyone else out there. Your requirement to have a listener register to leave you feedback is preposterous to say the very least. Look around ladies, I think you will find yourself in small company.

Like I said in my pissed off response. Everyone deals with spam. Trust me. We do what we can to combat it, but as far as we all go I think most of us put our readers first. I know for awhile I had content verification on, and then I removed that but put comment moderation on. Then I took it all off. I now have a big free for all. I can do this for two reasons: 1) I just don’t get so many comments I can’t go through all of them 2)I value my readers and I want to make it very easy for them to leave me notes or whatever.

Of course, none of this applies if you leave me a nasty gram. I reserve the right to delete any and all comments at my whim, but I am pretty generous.

Tags: No Comments