On Commenting on This Blog

Several questions have come up recently as to the commenting policy on this blog, so I decided to address them all at once in a separate post.

1. The reason why I moderate comments is not because I want to censor people ideologically or anything like that. There is simply too much spam and I'm trying to weed it out. Before I enabled moderation, there were several threads that were practically hijacked by spammers. I'm afraid that if I don't prevent the spam from appearing, regular readers will be discouraged from posting comments. If there are seven comments peddling lawnmowers or mail-order brides in a row, a reader who has something valuable to contribute might not want to publish their comment after them. Just the fact that moderation exists prevents many spammers from attempting to post their rubbish.

2. A few people have complained that their comments failed to be published. The only reason for this that I can think of is that Blogger must have eaten them. Believe me, no matter how much I disagree with you, I will never delete your comment unless it contains some really egregious insults to me or my family (thank God, there hasn't been anything like that for a while) or some outlandishly racist or anti-Semitic slurs.
3. Since my blog is becoming so "massively popular" (and doesn't it feel good to write this!) it becomes difficult to answer every single comment. I still read every single one of them but sometimes it makes sense to let people who have more to say on the subject answer specific comments.

4. As to emails that people send to this blog's address, if I failed to answer your email, this means that Hotmail placed it in the Junk folder. It would be great if people wrote the word "Blog" in the subject line of their emails because this way it would be easier for me to spot them and rescue them from the junk. If I have seen your email, there is no way that I will not answer it. It takes a while to answer blog-related mail each day (once again, massively popular here), but I get such amazing emails from people that I never begrudge the time to respond. I especially love it when students from all over the world write to ask for advice or share their thoughts. I'm also very grateful to people who send in interesting links and blogging suggestions.

Thank you, everybody, for reading, commenting, and writing in!

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