Editing comments before approving

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  justjennifer · Member · Jul 25, 2008 at 7:58 am

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  Do I understand correctly that when comments are moderated, you first have to approve the comment before you can edit it?

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  wpvstp · Member · Jul 25, 2008 at 8:07 am

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  Nope. You can edit any comment in the queue by clicking the commenter’s name.

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  raincoaster · Member · Jul 25, 2008 at 8:21 am

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  This is just my opinion, but in my opinion it is extremely inadvisable to edit comments. I’ve taken out the phone number of some kid who innocently left it in a comment, and I’ve pasted in the IP addresses of a Scientology spam effort, but further than that I would not go. Some courts have held that the rights to those comments lie with the commenters, not with the blog owners. I’d either delete it or let it go, unless it was an extreme case like the above.

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  justjennifer · Member · Jul 26, 2008 at 6:45 am

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  Thanks to both of you. Now that I know how to do it, I’m not sure that I will.

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  davidbridger · Member · Jul 26, 2008 at 2:53 pm

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  Might be worth contacting people before editing. I emailed a commenter yesterday to let her know she’d included an error and ask if she’d like me to edit it before I approved the comment. It was an easy communication and she was grateful I’d spared her some embarrassment.

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  mallymcginnis · Member · Jul 26, 2008 at 4:27 pm

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  I would quite resent for one of my posts to be edited before it were posted. That in mind, I would not edit a post before it were posted to my blog. I would either ask the writer to edit it, or reject it, at the writer’s choice. My blog is PG and moderated. It is not fully live yet.

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  justjennifer · Member · Jul 26, 2008 at 4:44 pm

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  In this particular case, the nature of the comment was inflammatory, not an innocent oversight or a straightforward error. For a few minutes I debated whether to show enough of the comment to indicate its nature, but not allow all 730 words-worth of rant through. Meantime, it’s in comment purgatory and will stay there until I decide what to do with it.

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  teck07 · Member · Jul 26, 2008 at 5:55 pm

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  I recommend implementing a comment policy so your readers
  know what is expect of them & what could get there comment
  deleted or edited… That way there fore warned…

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  lindafredrick · Member · Jul 26, 2008 at 9:43 pm

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  Not a situation I’ve had an issue with yet, but not surprised it happened. I”d follow the prevailing advise and explain to the commenter that you’re not comfortable posting it. A comment policy would be good, how would one go about putting it in a workable location?

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  justjennifer · Member · Jul 28, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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  So it’s a couple of days later and meanwhile I found that my commenter posted the exact same comment under various names on other blogs dealing with the same issue. The email address was also a sham. The Delete Button was employed.

  Thanks for everyone’s thoughtful comments.