It took almost three years for a post here to receive 100+ comments and the post in question took a little over a year itself to amass that many comments, mostly from younger readers. The thread in question is my review of Nintendogs: Daschund and Friends. I played the game a couple times and haven’t since, but a very vocal group of readers have continued to keep this post alive and really, really seem to love this game. Or at least love talking about it.

So many comments, in fact, that a growing number have begun to spiral off course and have begun to descend into off-topic, unrelated and counter-productive discussions. We do not want the comments area to become a place where people are made to feel uncomfortable about each other and/or to be used for email harvesting bots (please do not post emails or other personal information in the comments area without any sort of code/encryption). This is especially true where younger people are involved. I’m not naive to believe that any place on the internet can be completely civil, but as a site grows in traffic there needs to be some level of civility maintained or people get hurt and things can escalate beyond reason.

This prompted me to rethink the viability of a chatroom being placed in specific threads like the Nintendogs. Remember the mobber review? This morning I placed mobber on the Nintendogs thread in hopes that this will be useful to those who want to have off-topic discussions. Then again, maybe this will kill off any momentum and community that was being built around that page. We’ll see.

Hmm comment rules revisited
This doesn’t mean readers cannot debate, disagree and discuss things with each other there as long as it stays on topic. When readers start attacking/flaming or spamming in the wide open we will step in and start editing, deleting and declining to approve future posts. This also keeps the comments to email and comments to RSS feeds clean of this type of discussion. We strongly believe this is a benefit to those who are interested in further discussion on the topic, but disinterested in seeing off-topic discussion.

This site is not called Things That Waste Your Time although some things might do just that (it’s possible for something that makes you go hmm to also waste your time), I’d prefer that the comments section not be one of those places, however. Add value or don’t comment, it really is that simple. If it means we get less comments or a number of new posts with zero comments, that’s fine. Overall, we are pleased with the number of comments and quality, but some threads like the Nintendogs ones (the other one has 50+ comments) bring up why it’s necessary to re-evaluate the community decency standards at this site.

The area where there will be the most flexibility is when it comes to comments made specifically toward me. I will let a lot of flames against me stand as written. I’ve learned that sometimes on the web people don’t know how to make their point without brute force insults. Depending on the level of civility and how on-topic the rest of the flames are we will sometimes approve these type comments. Other times they’ll be axed. Yes, this is very subjective. You can make your own rules at your own websites where you pay for your own bandwidth.

Please do not send one-way trackbacks - unless your post adds tremendous value, these are usually not approved. A one-way trackback is a post that does not contain a link to the page that is being trackbacked. Although obvious, we also won’t approve trackbacks from splogs/spam.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: if you disagree with me on something, then find a post here that is about that topic and then debate the subject with me all you want. I find debate healthy and productive and encourage passion among readers; from either those who agree or disagree. I do not, however, like or appreciate attacks against other readers and unrelated, off-topic comments and/or spam. Please understand that if you come at me with guns drawn, my response may not be predictable or polite.

Every link, every comment, every word and link made here by third parties are reviewed. The first comment is moderated and comments that meet a certain threshold (spam keywords primarily) are held for moderation. After that, comments should passthru without further moderation unless triggering the threshold. We do to follow comments that passthru without moderation and they remain subject to the same criteria. These will either unapproved or edited if they are off-topic, spam, attacking another Hmm reader or are completely uncivilized. The bar here may seem high, but it’s actually fairly low. We do want relevant, on-topic comments. If you doubt that, then make a few and see what happens. In fact, this is a good thread to discuss/debate this topic with me if you like.

On the subject of linking to third party sites: we do not use no-follow in the signature space so please do not link to spam sites or splogs. We will not allow linking out to those type sites. If you found your link was stripped from the signature then we thought your site was too spammy/sploggy looking. No offense, that’s our opinion.

We are going to simplify and shorten the rules/criteria above and put it on every post or link it from every post in the comments section. It’s on the to-do list, I swear.

Back to Nintendo and other popular commented on Hmm posts
This activity fuels my reasoning by why I think Nintendo very well could jump into the #2 spot with the Wii. Sony has dug themselves a deep hole, one which I’m not sure they’ll be able to get out of with the PS3. It looks like it will be overpriced and lacking enough good games, but we’ll see what happens when it finally launches. Meanwhile, Nintendo plugs away making fun games that create passionate players like the ones still leaving comments here for over a year.

Another post that continues to receive comments is Netflix Throttling, weighing in at 95 comments. My post there is a joke not very good quality but many of the long and often spirited comments are golden. The value in this thread comes from the comments.

The third most commented on post to date has been Podcasting Star Wars with 71 comments, which I would rank as my personal favorite for most comments being left. There are some great comments there and if you have any interest in the history of podcasting, I’m sure you’ll find both the post and comments worthwhile. It’s a classic.

Overall to date, MakeYouGoHmm.com has received 5,889 comments from 2,657 different readers. The most prolific commenter besides me is Sterling with 359 comments. I saw his blog the other day on Techmeme and took a screenshot (see below). He is a great example of somebody who got involved here, left lots of good comments, worked on his own blog, and is seeing some additional love back to his site. I sincerely hope other readers who have blogs will see the same benefit.

Leave useful, related comments/trackbacks and you will.

• Debating what is/isn’t spam in comments sections
• Comments and Trackback Policy
• Trackbacks now inline, mixed with comments
• Comment moderation dilemma
• First look at Nintendogs: Daschund and Friends
• 7 sure signs it’s comment spam