For you experienced bloggers: Do you approve comments that you can't read with links to non-English sites? I have a new blog and I have 2 comments being held for review. They came about a 2 days apart and appear to be the same language but I don't know what. One is all in a non-English with a link to a non-English site. The other has an English comment (complimentary) but leads to a non-English site. Since my site is all English and I have no idea what is being said or what type of sites they are do I approve them? I don't want to be rude but... Terri www.promisecreations.com
If you put some chunks of them into Google it's very likely that the results will at least enable you to work out what the language is, and then putting a chunk of them into a free online translation engine should at least enable you to see whether it might be something relevant or (more likely) pure spam. Also, if there are links to sites, having a quick look at them must surely give you some information as to their potential relevance (or otherwise) to whatever you're blogging about (e.g. are they commercial sites, blogs, or what)?
If they cannot write their comments in English on an English site do you wonder if they could even read it? You can assume 99.9% that they are spamming you. http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr is a decent enough translator to give you an idea of what they are up to. Be careful checking the incomprehensible sites out directly unless your firewall and anti-virus is up to date! I can understand you not wanting to be rude but that is exactly what they are doing to you.
Thanks for the translation info. Very handy. Both comments are in Russia. And neither site has anything to do with my blog. From what I can tell one is on hair removal and the other is a traveler's site... Good grief!