So you want to leave a comment on LauraEarnest.com, but you don’t know what to expect. Does Laura allow comments? Does she allow disagreement? Ooh…look, there’s a squirrel. What were we talking about? I can’t *$&@ remember!
Oh, yeah. Answers below.
Are comments moderated?
You betcha. At least your first one is. Once I have determined you are a real person who is not just trying to drop link excrement, I approve the first comment. From there on, it’s automatic.
Except…
How is flaming/personal attacks/disrespect handled?
There is a 100% complete and total no disrespect policy on all my blogs.
You can’t play nice, I’m going to delete your comment. You keep it up, I’ll ban you from the blog.
I’ve been blogging for a really long time (10+ years). I’ve seen a lot of hate and negativity out there.
I’ve had to ban people three times in all those years. Once with one of my relatives (Yep. No kidding. Under two email addresses). Once with a troll. And once with a person who then complained about censorship. To which I say:
My blog, my rules.
Be nice or go home.
What the @#*%! about swearing?
I know people swear. I get that. I swear sometimes too. It usually involves injury, like breaking toes or dropping something on my foot or getting stung by yellow jackets for the third time in as many weeks.
When I was a high school teacher, I don’t get to swear at all. (Well, out loud. I still do it sometimes in my head)
But I don’t normally swear.
So I don’t swear on the blog. And I feel comfortable letting my daughter read it. She’s got a weird interest in productivity. Don’t know where she got that from. 🙂
So if you swear in a comment, I will delete the expletives. Too many times (meaning I have to do too much work to make your sentiments presentable) and you’ll probably end up banned from commenting.
Ooh…there’s a chicken! (Or being off-topic)
We all get off-topic sometimes.
Let’s face it. If you’re reading this blog, you are probably doing a million and one things. It is natural that sometimes we will get off topic.
So I’ll let your comment stand. But I’ll probably ask for clarification. Just because I think it’s off topic doesn’t mean it is. I just might not be seeing the connection.
Waht if I tpye something not good?
I’m not going to clean up your misspellings and grammar errors, unless you want me to. Yes, this has happened. Just send another comment with the correction, and I’ll take care of it.
I know it is possible to track down just about everything you’ve ever said on the web. It’s good if we can make it the best we can.
(And if at some point you want me to delete one of your comments from an article, contact me.)
Linky, linky, what about links?
My software automatically holds a comment for moderation if there are more than 2 links…even if you have had comments approved before.
I guess the software dudes have figured out that more than two generally means it is spam. I don’t care for spam, neither in the electronic or canned form.
Do I have to give you my email address?
C’mon…I can’t stand over you and make you give me your address. But it would be nice.
Because that is how I can email you back.
I’ve emailed readers who have commented to get their opinions on other issues. I’ve asked a couple to write guest posts for me.
The whole point of commenting is to have a conversation. It’s hard to have a conversation when someone isn’t there.
What do you do with my email address?
I want to state for the record that I fully believe in GDPR and apply all rules to my site even if you live somewhere not covered by GDPR. (I don’t have to follow the California rules because I’m not big enough and don’t make enough money).
So what do I do with your email? Nada.
It sits inside my little comment area of my blog dashboard. And stays there. I might click on it to open an email window (see above).
But I don’t put you on any mailing lists. Too much work to copy and paste. Besides, if you’re on my mailing list, I want it to be because you want to be on the mailing list. So that means you have to go sign up.
I definitely don’t sell email addresses. I hate spam. I expect most of you do too.
So your email address is safe.
Anything else?
If I haven’t covered something you are wanting to know, please use the Contact Me form to send me an email. I’d love to hear from you, even if you don’t have a question!
Want to know more about GDPR and privacy on LauraEarnest.com?
There is an extremely long privacy policy here. It tells you what services I use, and what data is collected, how it is stored, and how to get all your data deleted off my site.