Can I edit the comments on my blog?

I think your concern about credibility is overblown. Imagine if a newspaper were forced to publish letters to the editor with no changes.

Also, there are technical solutions to this, include having Intense Debate continue to maintain the original as comment left by the commenter, indicate that it has been edited by the blog, and have a way of displaying the original, such as mousing over the indication that it was edited.

-Brent

Michael wrote:

Thanks for the feedback. Your recommendation is an interesting idea and I'd like to open it up for further debate. I will also bring it up with the team here to get their input.

I'm sorry to hear that you're frustrated by my response, but this is a controversial feature and should not be taken lightly. I still stand by my initial response and do not think my concerns are overblown.

But this is a really interesting topic. We currently give you the ability to delete comments (offensive content, spam, etc.). This is a necessary tool to have.

However, giving blog owners the ability to edit commenters' comments takes this type of censorship into a really gray area and raises the question of where do you draw the line?

I welcome any and all thoughts.

Sincerely,
Michael

Thank you for responding to my question.

I am surprised you consider this feature controversial. What I'm requesting is a feature that WordPress bloggers have had forever. For more information, look here: http://www.google.com/search?q=wordpr...

And how is deleting a comment more acceptable censorship than correcting an URL?

I think the difference is that as a company, Intense Debate has to deal with the backlash (if any) from implementing this. Wordpress is usually run by people who host their own blog on their own servers so maybe the consequence might not be that great if they had this function

Michael, actually it's exactly like having the ability to edit comments. When you cut and pasted their comments, you had full ability to do anything you wanted to with them, just like I do with my WordPress comments. The fact that you didn't do anything dastardly doesn't change the fact that you could have.

And anyone who cares would have the ability to go back to my blog and check on you. Agreed, problem solved. :-)

I'm surprised that no one else has voiced any complaints to you about not being able to edit comments. I was talking to another WordPress blogger about my experiment with your competition. His response: why would I even consider leaving WordPress' commenting system? I told him about all the other really cool features that commenting systems can have. In the end, he turned out being right; I couldn't leave, at least not yet. I suspect there are a lot of WordPress bloggers that that feel the same way.

Regardless, I'm flattered that you're considering adding this feature after receiving only one complaint.

I hope you consider my suggestion, I think it answers both my desires to edit comments and your desire to maintain the comment's integrity.

Good luck in your decision!

I was just looking for this very question... so thought I'd put in my two cents.

As a blogger, I like to have the ability to decide what appears on my blog posts' comments. I feel like I have the right to decide what does and does not appear... including modifying a person's comment that shows. As much of the time i don't want to delete the comment, i just want to filter out a bad word or a link.

However, i understand ID's stance, too. As a commenting platform, I would also want my comments to remain intact, even if on someone else's blog. Because they are my comments.

So i see the controversy. And I like the idea, best, of being able to edit a comment but only how it appears on my blog. And have the original kept on ID.. and I wouldn't even mind a link back on my blog's comment (perhaps a link in the comment itself that says something like "the appearance of this comment has been edited by the blog owner, to see the original click here..." or something to that affect.

i would, then, not mind if the blog owner modified the appearance of my comment on their blog. As it is their blog. And at the same time my comment would remain intact.

Oh and.. on this note as well, if someone posts a link in a comment on my blog, and they format it with HTML... the HTML shows. I don't like this and would like to just edit the comment so the HTML doesn't show! :)

FWIW, I agree with ID's stance here. To me, allowing the site owner to modify my comments is rather invasive. Those comments are tied to my ID profile, which others can see. If any site owner could modify those comments, they are essentially modifying my ID profile.

As regards to deleting vs modifiying: In deleting a comment, you are not changing what a person said, just choosing not to show what they said on your site. Changing what the user said seems like some form of libel or something like that. (Not that I'm saying its illegal, just that it feels like something wrong has been done.)

With WordPress, the blog comments are stored on the site owner's database, and I understand that he could modify the comments with SQL even if WordPress didn't offer that feature. But with ID, I need to have some sense of trust that, since my comments are stored in ID and not in the site owner's database, my comments are safe from modification.

Profanity filters are OK, but I'd kinda like a comment to appear saying "this site administrator has enabled profanity filtering" or something. If I say "Fuck you" and it shows up as "**** you", I don't want people to think I was too much of a wimp to actually write the word "fuck". If the site owner doesn't think that is productive, let them delete the comment. But don't let them change it to "I dislike your opinions, I think we need a group hug".

I appreciate the conversation. Last I looked, the polls were not going my way. :-( That's okay.

I think a lot of commenters are unaware how much control blog publishers have over their comments and how infrequently it is abused. That doesn't negate how important a feature being able to edit comments truly is.

Thanks for listening and good luck!

Why is this so hard? International Copyright dictates that a person's words are their own until they assign the rights to them to someone else. Many people dictate on their sites that by commenting, you assign certain rights of those words to the site. This would include editing.

The fact of the matter is, the creators of publishing platforms (blogs, forums, et al) have made editing comments easy for a reason. Respect that, and don't take away rights which are considered obvious and necessary as part of a "service". Taking away the ability to control one's own site is in fact not a service at all but a disservice.

If I clearly state on my site that I have full editorial rights over your comment, and a user is happy with that and comments... why should ID override what 2 consenting adults have agreed upon?

Finally, please don't make assumptions based on other site owners who have not weighed in. Don't assume that everyone else must be okay with it. I am a new user, and have created several accounts according to various needs (2 business, 1 personal). I took for granted that I would be able to edit comments! That you wouldn't be taking away rights I already have natively! If I discovered this serious flaw in the service and NOT also discovered this question and your openness to reconsider, I would have just left quietly without making a sound. Please don't count silence for approval, acceptance, or even disinterest. Most people who are dissatisfied just quietly leave without complaining. It would be a serious error to not factor those people into your final decision.

Jeannie, that US copyright you're talking about. For example in sweden (AFAIK) things do not fall under copyright unless they have some artistic value (which is the argument the Piracy Bay used to post and ridicule take-down letters)

As to this discussion I would say that I'm all for shared control. Specifically, I want to have some control on the comments I have (Such as editing typos, broken links, placing replies where they belong etc) but I think that the creator of the comment should have the option to know that his comment was edited and what the difference was.

In addition to copyright law, you also have to think about legal issues such as defamation. If a blog owner can edit a defamatory comment, he/she lessens the risk for the commenter, for his/herself and for Intense Debate - depending on the law in your country, all parties can be legally responsible. Sure, it's the internet and you can just delete the comment but you then lose a potentially valuable element of the discussion.

Editing comments is a basic feature that most forums, message boards, and other sites have allowed for ages. It's not been a problem there, and I fail to see why it would be a problem with ID. There are a few things that could be done:

- Make it a per blog setting, default option = off.
- If the option is on, place a "all comments subject to moderation" under the post comment box.
- Add to the edited comment a (uneditable) "edited by" line at the end. i.e Edited by d3bruts1d on 1/1/2008 @ 4:59 pm
- Send an email to the user and let them know that a comment was edited, and give them the ability to remove the comment within x hours of the edit...
- Allow a person to "report" a site for abusing the editing so that the site can be reviewed and banned / limited from ID.

I always expect something I post online to be subject to edit by the site owner, even if it is not stated. If I were to visit a site that constantly edited my comments for no valid reason, I simply wouldn't go there anymore.

I'm curious to know how this will change now that Automattic has acquired Intense Debate. I'd really like to start using this soon, but find myself unable to under current conditions. Do we have a timeline of when this will be fixed?

With respect, I take exception to this comment, Michael: "This feature would jeopardize a commenter's trust that their comments would not be tampered with or distorted, and would potentially destroy the credibility of Intense Debate."

This has nothing to do with the credibility of Intense Debate. This as to do with the credibility of the blog someone is commenting on. Nobody comments on Intense Debate, they comment on the blog. Intense Debate is a tool used by the bloggers.

Interestingly, even if this were a matter of Intense Debate's credibility, there could be no blame placed on Intense Debate, since it would merely be retaining the WordPress defaults. I installed Intense Debate on my blog in order to allow voting for comments and to enable replies directly to comments, not to have my control as publisher censored. So, yes, I am finding this a little upsetting, because I am having to delete a number of quality comments that I am not able to edit.

So in summary, not fair to blog owner to have his controls censored. Not fair to commenter whose comment must now be deleted.

I understand perfectly... that's why I uninstalled ID months ago. I have got to have the ability to edit comments. I also like the quality comments AND sometimes I have to remove the swear word or two.

Michael,

I am about 30% way through importing 66,024 comments from our website from over 4,000 registered users. It has taken 12 hours so far.

I will wait for the import to complete, but it is highly likely that we will remove Intense Debate if we cannot edit our comments.

No serious website will want to lose the right to make minor edits to otherwise good comments ruined by a dead link, typo or a potential legal issue.

Michael,

Make that 15,000 registered users!!!

It's simple: WordPress by itself (and, as other people said, most discussion, blog and forum systems) allow admins to do that. It's something users are used to. If the blogger starts abusing of his rights, then the site will lose credibility and its readers naturally, it's not this feature being implemented or not in ID that will affect that. Blog owners should be able to control all of their content.

These most recent comments miss the point. It is none of Wordpress's business to decide who "owns" or who ahs control of something posted on my blog. It is none of Intense Debate's business. And, quite frankly, it is is none of your business...just as it is none of my business to tell you how to run your blog. The blog is mine; it's my decision. The blog is yours; it';s your decision. Why are trying to figure out how other people should run their blogs?

I'm amazed that this issue is still kicking around with no resolution. Blog owners want to be able to edit their commenters' comments. It's not because the owners are evil. There are all sorts of legitimate reasons to edit comments. Are newspapers evil because they edit every single letter to the editor?

For those who want to maintain the integrity of the original comment, a technical solution could exist. Once the blog owner edits a comment, it will display on the blog with some indication that the comment has been edited and that it can be seen in its original form on the commenters page, and provide a link. The blog owner gets the comment displayed as he wants it, the commenter gets his original comment preserved.

Yet, for some reason, ID can't implement it. It's sad, really...

It's not a matter that "if WordPress allows it, ID shouldn't", it's a matter of the blog owner being able to control whatever he wants in his blog. I built my site, I worked to gain credibility, I invest money in its hosting and even if WP wouldn't allow me to do that, I could edit the database entries via phpMyAdmin. Because I CAN, because IT'S MINE, because I do whatever I want to do with it and that, over time, will contribute positively or negatively to the perception people have about my site.

ID is A TOOL that should offer blog owners as most features as possible. At minimum, it should allows us to do whatever we could do using WP's native comment system, and, of course, more, much more. One of ID's biggest advantages before was comment threading, which is already implemented in WP, so the gap is slowing getting smaller.

ID shouldn't be something that prohibits or limits blog owners to do stuff so their site gets better, that doesn't make any sense and feels to me as something parents do to children. We're not playing here, we're professionals, most of us seriously work on our blogs and we need that level of control, no matter what the reasons are.

I still think my original comments on this whole situation would not only be easy to do, but also solve everyone's concerns.

http://getsatisfaction.com/intensedeb...

I have a movie review blog. The theme of the blog is to have reviews without giving the plot points of the movie away.

I'd surely like to edit a comment that gives plot points away in the interest of other readers of the blog. I'm frustrated that I'm not allowed to do this.

Other instances are wrong URLs and a valid point being made in the comment but with profanity or personal attacks on the cast and crew of the movies or me. I'd like the right to say what is acceptable profanity on my blog and what is not. I don't want ID to decide that for me or to put random characters where I would like to say [Comment edited for profanity] instead of F%$^

Also the tag is not working when I tried to use it here... http://wogma.com/index.php/movies/car...

I recently got a commenter who was trying to reach a reporter. I had done a blog post on the reporter and the commenter accidentally left the post on my blog and included her cell phone. For her own safety, I wanted to delete her cell phone. I should be able to do this myself and the comment should say "Edited by Blog owner".

There are tons of ways to protect a commenter while also giving the blog owner finer control than delete/don't delete.

And after all, we are also commenters. We don't want our words messed with on other blogs... By making it Blog owner VS. commenter, you guys are doing everyone a disservice and pitting one against the other. We all play both roles and want to do the right thing...

Comment systems have to offer this - they are behind even the core WP functionality in some ways...

is this still not resolved for people using the blogger software? i really need to be able to edit visitors' comments and the fact that it wasn't possible from the off is bizarre to me. update please.