If you’re a blogger looking to engage readers, comments are a necessity. They can also be time consuming and– with comment spam– often a pain to deal with. KMDD recommends that all bloggers set comments to be moderated. There are many settings in your WordPress Dashboard (Settings>Discussion) that can tweaked to help you keep your post comments relevant and clean.
To allow or not allow. That is the question.
If you’re an infrequent blogger, or your site is informational in nature, we recommend turning comments OFF. Every post has individual settings that can override this general comments setting for occasions when you are actively seeking reader engagement (Posts>Quick Edit>Allow Comments). If you do allow comments on a case-by-case basis, remember to do the actual moderation. Login to your WP-dashboard and allow the comment to be posted.
Comment Spam
If you decide to allow comments on your site/blog you should know that comment spam is a real and insidious issue. There are many ways to deal with this and a Google search will return TONS of answers for you. In their FAQ, wordpress.org answers the question of why spammers spam you- “Because they can“.
Visit the WordPress Codex for a comprehensive list of comment spam issues.
Ask KMDD about methods to help you cut down on comment spam.
Real Bloggers
If your site is mainly used to blog, KMDD recommends you seek out and take a class on blogging. It will help you with many issues such as comment spam, but also with content, engaging readership, and best practices for categories and tags. Here’s a quick (free) lesson on wordpress.org - Introduction to Blogging.