Kalkan Turkey
Do humans NOT place an emphasis on being inclusive?
We want to belong.
On one level, most of us want pretty much everyone to belong.
People seek commonality.
People want to speak up and be heard.
Others want to give all the power to speak up and be heard.
Sounds noble…..right?
Maybe…..or maybe not.
Come in close.
Lemme explain why being restrictive helps your blogging community.
When Restricting Your Readership Helps the Whole
I recently spent about 1 hour manually closing comments on all blog posts.
After testing comments for a few weeks the raw numbers spoke this message:
- spam made up 99% of comments (or more)
- 1% of comments (or less) seemed to be genuine humans who wanted to share their authentic thoughts
I made the intelligent decision to restrict my readership for the good of the whole.
Mentally injured people who spammed my blog:
- consumed valuable server resources
- added nothing helpful for the community
- served as dead weight for the community
Restricting their access makes perfect sense for you loyal Blogging From Paradise readers.
Loyal readers enjoy:
- faster blog load times
- a pleasing user experience
- greater levels of my attention and energy (I gave the 10 to 20 minutes I spent scanning spam folders daily back to you)
Everyone here who wants my blogging guidance wins.
The only suffering bastards prone to restriction are spammers who just wanted to leech without adding anything of value, anyway.
Genuine readers collectively win with this reader restriction held in place.
What About the Less than 1% of Genuine Blog Comments?
In an imperfect world of duality, someone gets left out for the good of the whole.
100% of the time, prevention of this reality is completely impossible.
I may leave comments open on new posts for a few days depending on the presence (or absence) of the mentally injured spammers.
But a hyper small percentage of you loving, loyal commentors take the blog comment hit for the collective sins of the spammers.
Even the few disappointed commentors enjoy a seamless user experience because spammers do not share server resources with them.
Did my blog load quickly a few moments ago when you clicked through to it?
If it did (hopefully), the main reason was that 10 spammers were not parked on the blog simultaneously copying and pasting comments like:
“Great job! Nice post! Visit Foot Fetish Dot XYZ!”
I got rid of those weirdos by restricting my blog.
You get a fast loading blog, my extra attention and energy (no need to scour over spam bins and fish out legit comments anymore) and the collective community wins.
As your scale increases, not everyone will be happy with your restrictive decisions.
Par for the course, folks.
Is My Blog a One-Way Street Now?
Yes.
No.
Yes I closed blog comments, save for new posts (as of this publish date).
No it is not a 1 way street because readers can easily reach out to me via:
I reply relatively quickly these days.
Anyone can reach me right now through these channels.
Being restrictive by closing comments does not make me inaccessible.
You cannot be seen through my blog.
But you can get my help relatively swiftly through many other channels.
I am beating a dead horse to a sloppy pulp here, but once again, this restrictive move benefits the community, on the whole.
Restricting Your Readership Depends on the End Game for the Whole
I am here to share blogging guidance.
Pretty much across the board, you are here to receive my blogging guidance.
Restricting our readership by removing blog comments keeps all focused on the end game: receive my blogging guidance through my blog posts, online course and eBooks.
But your readership may expect different outcomes.
Do you run a political blog?
Is freedom of speech important to you and your tribe?
Make freedom of speech important to your community.
Consider keeping blog comments open.
Or consider moving the discussion over to social media.
Everything depends on your collective goal for your tribe.
Restrict when it helps most.
Do not restrict if it appears to help you but does not benefit the whole.
Think about your readers.
Run a test phase to verify your feedback.
Test Phase Before Restrictions
I gave Blogging From Paradise Dot Com a trial run with comments open for all posts.
I restricted that within 2-3 days. My oldest posts generated a sick volume of spam and zero genuine comments.
I tested this window: keep comments open for 1 year after posts went live.
Still being besieged by a tsunami of spam, I tightened the window to a few months.
After opening my blog today to see dozens of comments I:
- closed comments on all old posts
- allowed comments on new posts for 2 days
- wrote the blog post you are currently reading
I tested before I restricted.
I vetted before shutting things down.
Consider following my lead before you restrict your readership.
What Is the Goal of Your Blog?
The goal of Blogging From Paradise Dot Com is to offer you blogging tips.
My goal is not to generate blog comments.
What is the goal of your blog?
Think long and hard before you answer the question.
Consider this before restricting to make a confident decision.
One Other Example of Restricting Your Readership
I run 11 communities for bloggers through:
I restrict my readership over there by moderating all content.
I moderate members joining for some groups as well.
Moderating guarantees that only high quality content graces the walls.
Bloggers who want high quality content get it because I restrict users by moderating all submissions.
Quality content makes the groups helpful blogging resources.
Restrictions prove beneficial, once again!
Conclusion
Consider the end game for your blog before restricting your readership.
Give the people what they want for the betterment of the whole.
