ralpress.org

It’s just dawned on me why it probably takes some online publications so long to moderate their user comments. Page hits. Duh. Many users who leave comments check back on a regular basis to see the reaction to their pithy wisdom or pithy provocation. There have been conversation threads on reddit in which some users have admitted that they all but sit with their elbow on F5 after publishing a comment (in order to see reactions as soon as they appear). Many Commercial sites that routinely take an age to vet submitted comments have a vested interest in doing so, users who are refreshing pages while waiting to see their comments appear are likely to be boosting the site’s ad revenue at a far higher rate than those who are not engaging in comment thread conversations.

Of course, the standard response to any complaints about moderation lag always seems to involve indignant citing of an overworked, underpaid English graduate, heroically battling his or her way through thousands of incoming messages. I suspect that the reality is that many publications moderate efficiently, in timely fashion, and then add the vetted messages to a timed publication queue with a delay sufficient to deliver the optimal compromise between boosting revenue and irritating users.

So, when a publication like El Reg next runs a story about Steve Ballmer, Ubuntu, or Jacqui Smith, and you’re wondering why it is taking so long for the inevitable scores of comments to appear, you might want to bear this in mind