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Comment Notification Email, And Spam Classification

Comment moderation, and comment notification, have long been optional features of Blogger Commenting.

The sequence of comment moderation email, and comment notification email, was simple.
  • If comment moderation was selected, moderation email was sent to all blog administrators. Any one administrator could then select to Publish, or to Reject, a given comment.
  • If comment moderation was not selected, each comment was simply Published, immediately.
  • If comment notification was selected, notification email was sent to all recipient email addresses, when any comment was published.
  • All blog administrators could Delete any comment, after it was published, at their discretion.

When the new comment moderation system was provided, in 2010, comment moderation changed. As the comment filters became trained, some comments were automatically rejected - and sent to the Spam queue - and that is where the current problem starts.

With the new comment moderation system, spuriously filtered comments never generated notification email - and this was a problem.

Comments sent directly to the Spam queue could be moderated, and Published, at the discretion of the blog administrators. Comments which were not Published remained in the Spam queue - and never generated notification email.

As the filters in the new comment moderation system became trained, false positives became a problem. Comments, spuriously filtered as Spam, generated no notification email.

Blog owners, accustomed to moderating comments after they were published, and receiving no notification email from comments which went straight to the Spam queue, complained of lost comments.

Listening to complaints from the blog owners, Blogger Engineering changed the sequence of the comment moderation and notification emails.
  • If comment notification is selected, email is sent to all recipient email addresses, as soon as a comment is submitted for publication.
  • If comment moderation is selected, moderation email is sent to all blog administrators.
  • All blog administrators can Delete, or mark as Spam, any comment, before or after Published, at their discretion.

With comment notification email being sent immediately, this leaves recipients of the email occasionally confused. Comments immediately judged as Spam by the filters, or later by a blog administrator, will still generate email.

Recipients of comment notification email, not seeing a given comment published, who are blog administrators, can check the Spam queue - and in some cases, choose to Publish a comment which is spuriously filtered as Spam. This helps to train the filters - and later, see less spuriously filtered comments.

Recipients of comment notification email, not seeing a given comment published, and who are not blog administrators, will have to notify a blog administrator, who can check the Spam queue. In some cases, again, the administrator can choose to Publish a comment that is spuriously filtered as Spam.

As a blog owner, you need to properly select the moderation and notification options, to satisfy your personal needs. And, help to train the filters, by active and prompt moderation of each new comment.

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Comments

didn't get this memo. i can see clearly now...

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