Blogging Discussion: Registration Required to Comment?

By Kyle Eslick on July 11th, 2008 | Filed Under WordPress
Tag(s): Blogging, Blogging Discussion, WordPress, WordPress Comments

I’m not really sure if this is a trend or just coincidence, but over the past week I’ve noticed quite a few of the blogs that I stumble upon require you to setup an account before you can leave a comment. Anyone know what is up with that?

This is obviously a very useful WordPress feature for blogs that have a strong community built around their website, but I think most people should consider the consequences before they require you to register to comment. A choice like this could keep truly hinder a new blogs growth or discourage a blogger who isn’t seeing the reader interaction they were hoping for.

As with pretty much everything, there are some positives and some negatives to doing this. Off the top of my head, here are a few positives and negatives of requiring registration to leave a comment on a blog:

Positives of Registration

Spam Prevention - Requiring registration should stop spam completely.
More Options - Requiring registration opens up some interesting opportunities to customize comment appearance, allow you to create profiles, etc. I’ve seen a few high profile websites do this, but the registration usually is optional instead of being required.

Negatives of Registration

Less Comments - Some people value comments more than others, but I think most bloggers would find less comments to be a negative as the whole concept of blogging was formed around the concept of reader interaction with the writer.

I personally do not leave comments on blogs that require registration because it just isn’t worth it to me. I have enough accounts to manage without trying to remember my account information. I also think things like spam can easily be avoided for WordPress users using tools like Akismet and Bad Behavior, Spam Karma 2, or Math Comment Spam Protection (which we use here).

I’d like to hear what you think in the comments below. How do you feel about blogs that require registration to comment? Do you take the time to register or do you just decide not to comment at all?

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There Are 13 Responses So Far. »

1 SE7EN
Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

register to comment is a big no-no to me. I’m too ~~lazy~~ busy to register
2 Derek
Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

I agree with Seven here. If i’m going to go out of the way to not only read your blog, but also leave a comment, it should be as easy and accessible as possible.

Now, granted if you are pulling 50k uniques a day and were trying to force users into an email list or some other opt-in it might be worth it…otherwise I think you just hinder the growth of young sites / communities.
3 Hoodgrown Magazine
Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

I’ll almost never register to comment on a blog, unless it’s something that has absolutely outraged me and I feel the need to comment on. Lol

I use Akismet and Bad Behaviour and it’s done a great job of catching and/or deflecting all of the spam that my sites receives.
4 Katy Castro
Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

I will not register anywhere for comments. While in some cases I understand the practice, I feel like the blog owner doesn’t value my time to force registration. Instead, I chalk it up to their loss and leave, usually to never return.

Should I happen upon a blog that I’ve already subscribed to and they require registration, I’m out of there. Not only have they lost a comment but a subscriber as well. This doesn’t happen to me often but does indeed happen from time to time.
5 jbj
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 1:47 am

I should register on a few blogs, but mostly, when I need to set up an account to comment, I do not comment. So in my opinions, unless your blog is very very popular, open comments are better.
6 redwall_hp
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 11:19 am

Normally I just leave if comment registration is required. Even if I have an account, it’s a pain to have to log in to leave a comment.
7 Bengt
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 12:16 pm

Requiring registration for comments gives less comments. I for one leave those blogs without commenting.

If the blogger wants to build community there are better ways. And there are other tools for spam protection than forcing people to register and log in.
8 Kevin Boss
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

I cringe when I want to comment and see a “you must register to comment” message. I’ve never registered to comment on a blog.
9 shawal
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

I will not leave any comment on blog that need me to register to comment..

There is lots of simple plugins on wordpress to use to avoid spam comment, why should we make our blog commenter a hard way to leave a comment….
10 Jimbo
Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 2:32 am

Yeah I guess it stops SPAM kinda…and not that much of a problem if you use firefox plugin BugMeNot
11 John Hoff - eVentureBiz
Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 1:45 am

I pretty much agree with everyone else above. When I see “Sign Up” I turn and run. I can see the advantages of building a strong community through it and you could offer specials for those who sign up, but in the end I figure the only reason why they want me to “sign up” is so they can eventually sell me something.
12 Thomas
Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 2:00 am

Sometimes rude or offensive comments can be a problem for the website owner if the authority blames the website owner (like in Germany).
13 Taryn Merrick
Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 7:30 am

I will be releasing my new blogsite next week and was going to make commenters register. I am so glad I caught this post, I am changing my options now so they will *not* have to register! Thanks so much.