We get quite a few comments on these blogs each week and I can't actually remember a single comment that we haven't approved for display. (with the exception of duplicates!) Now, I can imagine having to do some selection where the comments would be considered defamation, but luckily we've never really had to deal with that. (There was a really interesting series of blogs by the BBC about how they deal with this sort of thing. Read them here: BBC Moderation, The Law and "Censorship") The rest, we all let though (edited for naughty language!) This means though that we've approved some comments which are less than complementary about our products or service. Getting these comments is great because it means we can identify a problem, or service issue and take action but they stick around on your posts, possibly casting a negative light on what is often a single user issue or something not typical of our service in general for a long time. Now, before I get into my idea, I just want to make something clear. We aren't about to change our moderation policy here, or try and 'change the past'. If you've got a gripe about our services, get a comment on a post and we'll do what we can to improve or fix, or even better, head over to the forums and see if our community can help you out. This is just an idea...! I was just considering the concept of comment aging. When you are talking with other people about recommendations or things to avoid, those conversations fade away into memory. They are specific to the individuals involved and unless they come up in further conversation, don't tend to spread unless really significant. Similar with email or instant message conversations, they may be archived, but aren't immediately available to everyone else. Would it work for comments to age? Fade them to indicate age? Archive them away over a certain amount of time? Apply it to all comments to make it fair? If you did this, then only the most recent, and in principle, the most relevant comments would appear alongside blog posts. Consistent good or poor performance would mean that comments would still be there, but be current/relevant to the discussion. Has anyone seen any examples of this being done? Do people think it's a horrible idea? I'm not sure myself!
