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Google+ Comments Lack Controls For Moderation And Notification

As more people choose Google+ Comments for their blogs, we're seeing concern from confused blog owners, mentioning lack of control.
There is no option for comment moderation in my blog's settings. My Comments Settings only includes the option to change Location.
and
I don't get notified about any comments published against my blog. There is no Setting for Comment Notification Email, either.
These owners are discovering one of the design simplicities in Google+ Comments.

With Google+ Comments, anybody can post - and share - a reference to any content, on the Internet, that they can view. If your blog is public, any post from your blog can be shared in Google+.

If someone shares a post from your blog, and you are in a Circle where the post is shared, you may see the shared post in your Google+ stream. You have no control over content in your stream - even if the content references your blog - which you do not share.

You have no control over content about your blog, which you, yourself, do not share.

If somebody comments on a post shared from your blog, and you are in a Circle where the post is shared, you may see the comment in your stream. Again, you have no control over a comment made against a post in your stream - even if the comment references your blog.

In no case will you have the opportunity to moderate either a post, or a comment against a post, if someone else shares a reference to a post from your blog. Nor will you get a notification, if someone shares a reference to a post from your blog. Your blog is just one object of interest, from the millions of shares published by people in Google+.

If you, yourself, share content from your blog, you will own that share - you can control the content in the share - and you can control any comments placed against that share.

If someone reshares what you share, that reshare becomes the property of the person resharing. If you are in a Circle where your share is reshared, you may see the reshared post in your stream. Again, you will have no control over the reshare - or any comments placed against the reshare.

If you are not in a Circle where your share is reshared, you won't even see the reshare. Even if your blog is referenced in a reshare, your blog is just one object of interest, in the millions of shares published by people in Google+.

Notifications work the same way. If you share content from your blog, you will get Notification when someone comments against your share - or when someone reshares what you share. If someone else shares - or reshares - content from your blog, which you did not originate, you won't get a notification.

With Google+ Comments, a post in your blog is treated like any time anybody shares a post from your blog. You own a post in your blog, just as you own a post which you share from your blog. You can control comments, when made directly against a post from your blog, as with a post shared from your blog.

If your blog uses Google+ Comments, you can moderate the comments by viewing comments on a post by post basis, and deleting what you don't like. You will get no ability to moderate comments before they are published - even if the comments are against your blog. Nor will you get notified when someone publishes a comment against a post in your blog.

Your blog has no comment moderation wizard, no settings for comment moderation, and no settings for comment notification, because you have no ability to moderate comments - nor do you get notifications.

Google+ is pretty much like real life. You can hear what people say about you, when you're in a real life conversation. You can't control what people say about you, behind your back - and you're generally better off not even knowing what people are saying about you, behind your back.

Concentrate on listening to what people tell you, or reading what they share with you. Ignore what you can't control, or hear. Get on with your life. Or, revert the blog, back to Blogger native comments.

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Comments

Unknown said…
I'm the one who asked on blogger help forum (you replied) about handling the Blogger spam folder, because I get about 200-300 spams auto-placed into the spam folder but thn for some time I've been getting 150-200 "posible" spams per day that that "await moderation."

I looked for you to find a way to thank the developers who suddenly found a fix for this.
Instead of 200 possibles in a day that I had to read through (bad for eyes and mind), I am -- as of 2 days ago -- seeing only maybe 5 a day!

That's a huge change. Instead of just writing when I have a complaint, I just want to let them know this work was noticed. Any way to do that? Or maybe you can pass it along...

As for what you describe with G+ comments in blogs, yes, it's really a concern, and I'd asked about the seeming lack of moderation before they're published. Then I opted out of using it for that reason.

But, am very happy about the way blogger 'possible' spam comments needing moderation by the blog owner have been cut way down by Blogger team.
D.B. Echo said…
Sooo...how DO we deal with spam comments now? Do we just need to patrol all of our past posts, one at a time, to see if any of them are being clogged up with spam or links to undesirable sites?

What advantages actually exist to using Google+ comments? ...and for that matter, why aren't you using the Google+ format on this blog?
Nitecruzr said…
D.B.,

You ask several interesting questions.

The advantages to Google+ Comments would be any advantages which come from further integration of our blogs into Google+. These advantages can be debated further.

I have not moved this blog to Google+ Comments, because I don't appreciate the lack of comment moderation, and other control options, such as described above. I like the dashboard based comment moderation wizard. Other blog owners may agree with me.

Of course, even as this blog remains with Blogger Comments, I know that anybody may be sharing this article, and others, from this blog - and I have no way of knowing what's being shared, since I am not in everybody's Circles.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/05/comment-moderation-in-blogger-blogs.html
D.B. Echo said…
One big disadvantage to using Google+ comments is that it turns your blog into a closed system: only people with Google+ accounts can leave comments. Everybody else gets to wail and gnash their teeth.

I've always allowed anybody to comment on my blogs (with moderation turned on), but I'm in a group blog (which I founded) where one member has elected to use her Google+ account as her Blogger identity - and has inadvertently switched the commenting system to Google+. Now I can't switch it back (without switching over my own Blogger identity to my Google+ identity), and she can't seem to figure out how to switch it back herself without doing some damage of some sort. I'm in a bit of a pickle - our blog is intended to be accessed and commented upon by people with a wide range of technological know-how, not just those in the Google+ club. But until we can figure out how to undo this safely, we're stuck.

On top of everything else, I'm just waiting for the day Google announces that Google+ is going the way of Google Reader. At that point, all these blogs tied into Google+ will have a problem. (Unless, of course, Blogger goes the way of Google Reader first.)
Nitecruzr said…
D.B.,

That is an intriguing issue - and one which should be explored, at length, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I briefly mentioned the effect of a team blog membership, in my discussion of Google+ Following. I think your scenario is even more interesting - and really needs exploration.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/03/google-circles-is-replacing-following.html
Nitecruzr said…
D.B.,

Google+ is not Google's first attempt in the battle of social networking.

Prior attempts included Buzz, Orkut, and Wave. Which came first, I can't remember. I looked at all 3, long ago - and found no real interest in either one.

Google+ is much better than all 3 - and one which has had obvious influence on FaceBook, the current social networking leader. Both Google+ Circles, and Google+ Stream, are features which FaceBook had to add into their design.

I really think that Google+ has a future, which far exceeds the future which Buzz, Orkut, and Wave ever had, combined.

I similarly think that Blogger has a future - and will complement Google+, for a long time. You can do so much more than Google+, in a blog. As long as WordPress - and similar blogging platforms and personal web space building platforms - are around, Blogger will be too.

MHO, anyway.

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