Moderated Comments

When I started this blog it was primarily for my own amusement, and that remains my central purpose. However, a number of you have invested time in making thoughtful observations about the various topics, and that has been a rewarding and somewhat unexpected bonus.

Early on I noticed some "anonymous" comments that were generic compliments about the site. That appealed nicely to my hubris, until I realized that they were repititious both in content and spelling errors. They also encouraged people to click on embedded links to other sites. Clearly some mischief was afoot.

My philosophy is always one of open dialogue and free speech. However, these postings come not from human beings interested in ideas, but from automated bots trolling for unsuspecting victims. Whether they are advertising links or malicious spyware, I cannot allow the blog to be used in this way.

Therefore, I will be moderating comments on the blog so as to weed out these troublesome bots. I have also gone back and deleted all that I could find on previous postings. This means only that there will be a short delay from the time a comment is posted until it appears on the blog. I will certainly not use this to censor content (unless it is obscene or libelous), but only to protect users of the blog from being victimized by those who seem to have nothing better to do than prey on the goodwill of others.

I'm sorry for the need to do this, but I prefer to head off any potential difficulty for those of you gracious enough to read these musings from time to time.