Years of being exposed to bad comments has compelled me to pen this down. As much as I am ashamed and embarassed to admit it, most of such comments are made by Indians. There, I said it.
Here’s a sample, on a blog post which had resources for learning Python :
“Hi I am very glad to see this website.
Actually I am very interested in this field.
So please send me some tricks of the computer.
Thanking You.”
I won’t go into why this comment shows the comment author is too lazy, incapable and dumb to understand anything related to computers – it just portrays a very very bad image of himself and India too. Here’s another one, on a blog post about education in Sweden.
Hi all,
please mail me List of consultancies in INDIA dealing with MBA courses in Sweden.
in fact my qualification is B.tech n i’m havinf 3 years of work ex in IT industry in development and testing……….
so please inform me about major courses available in MBA in my area?
what about the standard of education ? Is there any consultancies in Delhi of India? Please reply me as as quick as possible. your information will be very much useful for me.
My email is m************1@gmail.com
thanking you.
I could go on and on, and the web is filled with at least a million such samples. Anyway, that’s not what this post is about.
Ladies and gentlemen, The Code of Ethics for Commenting on Websites/Blogs.
1. Never leave your e-mail ID in the comment field. Most blogs have a separate field for the same purpose. Use it.
2. Don’t comment if you don’t have anything constructive to say to the author. Spare your rants for your own blog.
3. Try to be as grammatically correct as possible. Use complete and coherent sentences. If English is not your native language, work on improving your English.
4. Spare the profanity! Even if you’re the author’s best-bud from college, you don’t need to indulge in name-calling. Additionally, you may get sued.
5. Follow the comment policy of the blog. If you do, there’s a good chance you’ll get a reply from the author. If there’s no comment policy, observe the pattern of how the author responds to comments. Try obtaining cues from the comments he responded to..
6. If the author responds to your comment, it DOES NOT give you the license to hunt him down on Facebook and add him as a friend. Though you’re always welcome to follow him.
7. If the author is a celeb, spare the ‘fan-boy’ comment. It’s not the time or the place. There are other channels suited for the same purpose.
8. Never EVER ask the author to do any chores for you – eg: e-mail you (unless you happen to know him really well). There’s a good chance he will not bother.
9. Preview your comment before you hit ‘Submit!’.
10. There is a secret to make your comment come across as insightful and wise, even if you don’t know squat about what is being talked about. Find that secret and use it wisely. ( Hint: Using sesquipedalian words is not the answer.)
11. Don’t Troll. Don’t Spam. Both are equally bad.
12. Don’t shamelessly self-promote your website/blog/product/service. Instead use the comment to build a relationship with the author.
Note: The Code is a work in progress, and will surely undergo revisions. The latest version can always be found here.
haha .. True .. and yea most of them are indians
Actually, I think you’re missing something. Those are probably just spam entries.
I got the same kind of responses on my traveling blog which was completely written in Icelandic.
But the comments were written like the author understood and found the blog very valuable.
I’m also getting comments like that one on my current blog http://arnorhs.com/ (in English) and I admit that it’s much harder to distinguish those kinds of entries from real entries and sometimes make mistakes.
And of course my Akismet isn’t recognizing all the entries as spam. But spam it is, none the less.
Well, not exactly. I’ve even responded by e-mail to such comments and found them to be actual people in need of help. Really, but it’s not the time or the place to ask for help.