Moderation
Moderation is where comment systems usually become a chore. Connect is built around one idea: the common case, a legitimate comment on a quiet blog, should be handled from your inbox in one click, without logging in anywhere.
Moderation modes
Each site has one of three modes, set under Site settings:
| Mode | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Moderate everything | Every comment waits for your approval before being published |
| Moderate new authors only | Authors with a previously approved comment are published automatically; first-time authors wait for approval |
| Auto-publish | Comments are published immediately. Anti-spam filters still apply |
Moderate new authors only is the pragmatic default for most blogs: regulars flow freely, strangers get checked once. Moderate everything suits sites with sensitive topics or low volume. Auto-publish suits high-trust communities, and the anti-spam layer still holds back suspicious submissions, so auto-publish never means unfiltered.
While a comment waits, its author sees "Your comment is awaiting moderation" in the widget, so nobody posts twice wondering where their comment went.
Moderating by email
Every new comment (except the ones caught as spam) triggers an email containing the full comment: author name, page, and text. The email has two buttons, Approve and Reject. One click applies the decision and shows a small confirmation page. No login, no dashboard, no app.
When the comment is waiting for moderation, the email is a request for a decision. When it was auto-published, the email is informational, and the Reject button still works as a one-click way to take a comment down from your inbox.
The links are tied to that single comment, so they act on nothing else, and they keep working: clicking Reject after an accidental Approve reverses the decision.
Moderation emails go to every member of your team, and any member can act on them. Adding moderators to your team is available on higher plans, see pricing.
The moderation queue
For anything beyond one-comment-at-a-time, the dashboard has a moderation queue per site, with tabs for each status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting for a decision |
| Approved | Published, visible in the widget |
| Rejected | Refused, never shown |
| Spam | Caught by filters or marked by you |
Select several comments and approve, reject, or mark them as spam in one action. This is the tool for coming back from vacation, cleaning up after a spam wave, or reviewing what the filters caught.
Rejecting and marking as spam both hide the comment. The difference is intent: spam feeds your understanding of what the filters missed, rejection is an editorial decision. Either can be reversed later from the corresponding tab.
Blocked keywords
Under Site settings you can maintain a list of keywords, one per line. A comment containing any of them is marked as spam directly, whatever the moderation mode. Useful for the vocabulary that spam in your language reliably uses, or for terms you simply do not want on your site.
What moderation never does
Approving or rejecting never notifies the comment author that a decision was made. The only email a commenter can ever receive is a reply notification they explicitly opted into.