Posts with bad grammar/english

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sheepishwolf

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When going through my spam comments that are automatically deterred by Akismet, I found one comment that was actually relevant to the post and seemed to be posted by a human, but had horrible English grammar. Do you delete or block comments that have poor English or grammar, or do you keep them?

I'm not sure on what to do with this, because on one hand for people who's main language isn't English but still want to participate, it's not their fault. On the other hand, it wouldn't make my blog look great if fragmented English and poor grammar are on my writing blog. Where do you draw the line as to what is actually "spam" and a comment that you don't want, and where is your line of understanding to the commenters personal life (not having English as their first language).
 
For the sake of reason that every ligtimate person whould be taking part in the open discussion i would just approve those comments too. Some times people have bad english and their posts have poor english with bad grammer and spelling mistakes but the points they make are still very relevant and noteworthy.
 
The content of my site matters a lot to me, and that includes the comments, too. If a comment is slightly un-grammatical or poorly punctuated then I'll let it slide (reluctantly), but if the comment is difficult to understand then there is no chance I'll let it sit there and confuse other readers. Given a certain type of site though, I can see why you'd approve all comments, no matter of the quality (obviously excluding spam).
 
If you think it's a sincere comment, then definitely you would want to let it post. The whole point of blog comments is to allow interaction between the owner and readers, as well as allow conversation between readers. This is all part of building a community, which is the whole point of a blog (or supposed to be).

Frankly, I'm shocked that some of you think it's okay to ignore and block readers who want to interact with you. As long as they're not full of spam links, those comments are not going to damage your rankings due to low English skills. If you want perfect English and plan on ignoring everyone else, then turn your comments off. Otherwise, you're turning off your readers and hurting your own credibility.
 
I agree if the comment have some merit and are of some value, then I would keep them. And it lets everyone know right up front you are interested in the actual comment. Also lacking the writer feel less intimidated and they will share again.
I do however have to also agree that it is hard for me to read or get past the improper use of words. But, some people are getting the practice by just doing that. Practicing.
 
I used to delete every comment that had nothing to do with a post or article. I really wouldn't delete a comment that has bad grammar, though. If i can roughly understand what the user says, i'd keep it.
 
I often get blocked on sites by Akismet as I do a lot of forum and blog posting, good stuff, not spamming, but obviously some people have added me to Akismet for one reason or another. Akismet gives a lot of false positives, and once you're on the system it almost impossible to get off it these days as they are currently ignoring emails. I took it off my own blogs and just installed other anti-spam measures.
 
I guess it depends on how you see your blog and the people who comment on it. I'd allow it through, every time, since a blog (for me) is about communication and exchanging ideas. Yes, it's a writing blog but you're not responsible for your visitors' ability with language and, to be blunt, I'd consider it really snobby to reject comments because of their grammar unless it's so bad they can't be understood at all.

win2win said:
obviously some people have added me to Akismet for one reason or another.
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It'd have to be a lot of people, I would imagine!

win2win said:
Akismet gives a lot of false positives, and once you're on the system it almost impossible to get off it these days as they are currently ignoring emails. I took it off my own blogs and just installed other anti-spam measures.
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You've probably shot yourself in the foot a bit, there, since having it on your own blogs would allow you to approve any comments like yours that got marked as spam when they're not. Opting out of the system won't make it change.

Incidentally, I think I've had 2 false positives in the last four years of using Akismet on a large number of blogs. I rarely even bother to check the spam before I bin it these days.
 
I've been with same problem but eventually I just approve them these days. I feel like its very unfair to them who took time to read my blog entries while they are also having a hard time understanding lol. Its a good thing that I'm actually learning to write good sentences unlike years ago.

As long as they are commenting good and not like a bot, approve them.
 
I would approve the comment if it is relevant to the post. You have to remember that your blog would be getting visitors from all over the world and people from non-English speaking usually do not have a good grasp of English vocabulary or grammar. While Akmiset can help to detect spam, it cannot tell whether a comment is related to your blog post. I usually approve my comments manually and I have to tell you that I encounter many spam comments with perfect English and many non-spam comments with grammatical mistakes.
 
Bad English or grammar would not keep me from publishing the post if it was clearly not spam. I appreciate all comments from all my readers and if they cannot speak English, I will not let that stop them from being a part of the conversation. Now if it is at all spammy (not relevant to the post or contains a link) then no I would not approve.

I usually deny any post that has a link in the comment section. There is a place for them to attach their website to their name, they do not need to add a link to their site. There are a few exceptions to this rule tho, but usually if the comment has a link it is spam to me.
 
Since I encourage interaction on my website, I tend to let comments (even with broken English) appear on my website. This is especially the case if the comment makes a lot of sense and is very much related to the topic at hand. It will be a different situation however, if the comment appeared robotic and had other links associated to it.
 
sheepishwolf said:
When going through my spam comments that are automatically deterred by Akismet, I found one comment that was actually relevant to the post and seemed to be posted by a human, but had horrible English grammar. Do you delete or block comments that have poor English or grammar, or do you keep them?

I'm not sure on what to do with this, because on one hand for people who's main language isn't English but still want to participate, it's not their fault. On the other hand, it wouldn't make my blog look great if fragmented English and poor grammar are on my writing blog. Where do you draw the line as to what is actually "spam" and a comment that you don't want, and where is your line of understanding to the commenters personal life (not having English as their first language).
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I tend to delete comments with bad english automatically because normally the spambots make these type of posts. If it really seems relevant it will stay but more than likely they'll end up in the spam/delete box. I hate to take a lot of time optimizing an article with "perfectly written content" (to the best of my ability at least) and have it contaminated with awful comments. I actually prefer to keep commenting off unless it's something that requires engagement and responses from the viewers.

I tend to think that every portion of a web page reflects the image and reputation of the site, including the comments (even if it's known they are from external sources/people), so when it comes down to it broken english comments don't make it past my filter typically. I'm not sure if that counts as discrimination against people who don't know english well / from other countries, but more often than not it's a spam comment anyways.
 
Every once in awhile, I will get comments like this. I let them though. I think it gives my blog a little bit of flavor. My blog is about a major industry, but caters to my local area. I'm always surprised when I get readers from across the US and even outside of the US. Even though they aren't my target market, I don't want to alienate those readers.
 
I don't usually delete them but they don't usually get filtered as spam in my forum. As long as someone knows what the individual is saying, I don't see the issue on having them around, but if no one can understand what they said, I'd usually just throw the threads in Junk and set one of my moderators on that individual to either talk to the person and/or ban the person if their grammar or at least English does not improve.
 
I have been doing this a long time now so I can easily spot when someone has taken a comment that has already been posted and tried to spin the comment to make it look fresh. If the the comment is no spun and is a genuine one then I will normally publish it if I can read it.

I'll tell you what I used to do when I first started blogging, when I would get these kind of comments I would proofread them and then rewrite the comment for them so it looked better - I stopped when it started taking four or five hours out of my day! :p
 
Basically if it's understandable and on topic, I will let them through. Mind you, I've seen some pretty horrible posts from (apparently) native speakers too. :( I don't know. In my day... rambles off into a Grandpa Simpson rant.
 
As long as the comment was not spam I'd let it through. I'd be more worried about censoring my viewers than I would be at getting some of them put off from having a non-perfectly worded comment on my blog. Ultimately it is still my blog, and even though I appreciate my viewers' support, I would not let them dictate whether or not a comment has more or less of a value just because they weren't written as well as others. They are just an audience after all, and not really writers or bloggers themselves. And if anyone doesn't like seeing those types of comments on my blog then they are welcome to stop supporting it.
 
As long as the comment appears to be productive to the post at hand, I allow it. If it is off-topic, or just sounds plain out stupid, I would probably delete it... How bad is it to delete one comment anyways?
 
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