Bottom line: if you are going to have a comments section, whether it is a personal blog or a major media site, you have a responsibility to moderate the comments and decide what you are going to let them be. If you want to espouse a freedom of speech to the level of Mad Max, that's your prerogative, but make the decision consciously (and live with the consequences).
An unattended, unmoderated comments section is simply an attractive nuisance.
(h/t +George Wiman)
Don’t Read The Comments: Comment Sections Are Our Own Fault
It’s so common a refrain at this point the whole Internet should just get it tattooed on its forehead backward so it can read the message in the mirror every time it brushes its teeth: DON’T READ T…
He does make a valid point about over-moderation creating echo-chambers, which shows moderation is harder to get wrong than to get right.
I have a very simple baseline for the comment moderation on my blog: First, is it obviously spam. If so it's never approved to begin with. Secondly, does the comment add anything to the conversation. That's a lower bar than it might sound like. If someone expresses an opinion and it doesn't sound like an obvious attempt at trolling I'll generally let it through.
Not that it's a huge problem for me these days as my blog isn't as active as it once was.
Yeah, I tend to be fairly liberal (so to speak) about what i let through, giving folk the benefit of the doubt. Only if it's a a direct personal attack on me or on others, or more curse words than signal, will I hit the hammer.
I think the more you have a community of regular commenters the more it will start to police irself and the less you'll have to intervene. But the state of blogging today it's hard to get that size of audience.