An idea for a Wordpress Plugin

condra

Hey guys.

I'm not a programmer so I wouldn't know where to start, but I had an idea recently for a Wordpress plugin which I think would be great.

No, wait!... please read on!

I could be called "DON'T KNOW FOLLOW", or something like that.

Basically, where the visitor submits a comment, there is a small notice which says that links in comments are "no follow" by default, but the site owner can make them "do follow" if he deems them to be relevant.

I think it could be a nice solution to the "no follow vs do follow war" as it encourages interaction, yet discourages spam, while still allowing webmasters to reward their most helpful, dedicated contributers.

Cheers!

conorcan2

That is a good idea.

Two things though, for the purposes of playing devil's advocate..

First, if a webmaster reads a comment and it contains a link that she thinks is unworthy of a "dofollow" then the chances are that it's a spam link and/or doesn't contribute to the conversation. Normally, the webmaster clicks on the "delete" or "spam" button in that instance.

Second, having a dofollow link will only appeal to fellow webmasters (blog writers etc.) so the audience will probably have a high ratio of webmasters.

Mind you, these are minor considerations and probably don't detract much from the usefulness of this functionality for a lot of people.

tricky D

Already in play with plugins like Link Love.

condra

LinkLove rewards "regular commentators".
http://www.intenseblog.com/wordpress/link-love.html

That does nothing to discourage spam, or encourage useful comments IMO. it just encourages spammers to spam the same page again and again.

My concept is completely different, and if in my humble opinion, much better.