I Was Spending More Time Moderating Comments Than Writing Articles. So I Built a Better System.

One thing I didn't expect over the last couple of weeks was how much time website comments were starting to consume.

I'm not talking about writing them, but moderating them.

At first, it didn't seem like a big deal.
My step by step process was:
- Read the comment
- approve it
- reply if needed
- move on.
But after working through hundreds of SiteComments across my websites, I started noticing something....Some comments were excellent -They asked thoughtful questions, shared personal experiences, or added another perspective that actually made the article stronger.

Others... felt like someone had asked AI to summarize the article back to me.

Neither the reader nor future visitors really gained anything from those comments.

So here we are, now turning this into a blog post, because that sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole!

I asked myself a simple question:

What actually makes a good website comment?

Interestingly enough, this isn't a new discussion inside Wealthy Affiliate. Eric Cantu made a great video blog/post called Site Comment Etiquette 101 - https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/ericcantu/blog/site-comment-etiquette-101, where he talked about writing comments as the target audience rather than as another WA member. That really stuck with me because it's exactly what readers see when they land on one of our websites. If the comments don't feel genuine, the entire page starts to feel staged.

Fleeky made another point in his post The Art of Blog Commenting - https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/fleeky/blog/the-art-of-blog-commenting . He jokingly walked through the evolution from leaving "Great article!" comments to writing responses longer than the article itself. It was funny because there's a lot of truth in it. We've probably all been there at some point.

Both posts got me thinking though......

Rather than trying to moderate every comment manually, could I build a system that helped me make better decisions without taking away my own judgment?

That's where ChatGPT entered the picture.

I didn't want it to approve comments for me, or write replies for me.

I wanted it to become my editor.

Over the last few days, ChatGPT and I have built what has become a 16-step Website Comment Moderation & Community Management Blueprint. It's not designed to increase my approval rate. In fact, it's probably going to reduce it.

Instead, it's designed to improve the quality of every discussion happening on my websites.

One of the biggest changes was creating a simple rule that every approved comment must satisfy at least one of these four things, already asked for within Wealthy Affiliates site comments tab:

Ask a genuine question.

Start or continue a discussion.

Share personal experience.

Offer an opinion about the topic.

If it doesn't do at least one of those things, I now seriously question whether it belongs in the comment section at all.

That one rule alone has completely changed how I look at comments.

The blueprint also compares every comment against the article that I wrote, itself. That turned out to be surprisingly important because there were several comments that sounded perfectly reasonable until we read the article beside them. Suddenly it became obvious they weren't engaging with the content at all, rather, they were simply reviewing it or paraphrasing it. Now I don't know if that's just someone taking the article from their end and asking GPT to comment on the post, or not, but regardless.... .

Another thing is, that the replies have changed too.

Instead of thanking someone and repeating what the article already said, every reply now has a job to do. It should add one new piece of value that wasn't already in the article. Maybe that's another tip, another story, another lesson I learned later, another article that expands on the topic, or even a tool I personally use if it genuinely helps answer the person's question.

That's been one of the biggest shifts for me.

The comment section has stopped feeling like something I have to maintain and started feeling like an extension of the article itself.

Instead of asking, "Should I approve this?" I'm now asking, "Does this comment actually make my website better?"

That's a completely different mindset.

Every approved comment should contribute something. As mentioned above, it should ask a question, spark a discussion, share an experience, or offer a genuine opinion. If it doesn't, I'm becoming much more comfortable saying no.

The same goes for my replies.

I don't want them to simply acknowledge someone's comment. I want them to add another layer to the conversation, whether that's sharing an experience, pointing readers toward another article, or recommending a tool that's genuinely helped me.

At the end of the day, ChatGPT isn't replacing my voice, it's helping me refine it with a system in play.

Every comment still gets reviewed, every reply still gets edited, every final decision is still mine.

The AI simply helps me spend less time deciding what to do and more time having real conversations with the people who visit my websites.

To me, that's where AI delivers its biggest value....not by replacing the human element, but by giving us more time to be human.

Now, I'm curious... has anyone else changed the way they moderate SiteComments or reply to readers as AI has become part of your workflow? Or are you still using the same approach you did a year or two ago?

Have your approval standards changed over the past year?
If there's something I learned inside WA, that's how our minds have to shift to be business oriented. I'm just glad I have GPT as my secretary.