Another hat-tip change based on Johannes’ critique.
When I first started blogging I got several hundred spam comments for every real comment. Of course back then I had only one or two readers but even now when I have several thousand page hits a day I still get two or three spams for every real comment. Back then it was easier to just moderate all comments so they didn’t appear on the site. Over time it became a habit and I liked being able to acknowledge and respond to everyone’s comments inline.
On the downside I’m not always around and it’s gotta be a little stifling to make comments and then wait. It also makes it harder for people to reply to each other. It also makes everything into little two-part dialogs so I’m going to experiment with turning moderation off.
I’ll still try to respond to everyone in a reasonable amount of time, and I’ll still probably do it inline rather than as the more conventional stacked reply to all of the aboves. And I’ll still have to delete the occasional spam that slips through. If it works, cool! If not I’ll still try to find something else less intrusive. (I’ll see if I can maybe find a user-moderation plug-in or something.)
Your comments have always been welcome and I’ve always appreciated them. Consider yourself even more welcome now.
Submitted by 493 (not verified) on Fri, 2005-12-02 07:17.
I've never had a problem with your comment moderation and waiting is fine. Before word verification, I was spambotted like crazy and it drove me nuts, so I totally understand why you would take any and all measures to prevent that from happening.
It's your blog, you do what you want.
[Thanks Lena. Because I've had to moderate comments I've felt a lot of pressure to check them at all hours. Opening comments relieves that pressure and lets me run the blog. Sometimes it felt more as though the blog was running me. :-) The spam filter that comes with the new version of MovableType has more layers than I thought. It junks outright spam, accepts posts that clearly aren't spam, and asks me to confirm posts it finds merely suspicious. That's very cool. --fl]
Submitted by 493 (not verified) on Fri, 2005-12-02 09:20.
Screening or moderating comments is a blogger's right and never needs to be excused or explained.
DTG xxoo
[Thanks, DTG. Moderating (as opposed to simply responding to) comments has been a bit of a strain. I've never deleted a non-spam comment that wasn't an administrative aside (e.g. "your whole post is one big link because you forgot to add </a>") but it looks like my software has a number of options should someone ever get abusive towards another commenter. --fl]