A Message From Your Host

I'm not very tech-savvy, so I'm sorry if there are ways that I could improve the reader experience for this blog, and those ways escape me.  I'm not a Luddite, but my ignorance may mimic the condition. 

Someone reported to me the other day that he'd had trouble leaving comments here, he thought that I was blocking him.  After a little back and forth, he tried a test comment.  It came through fine, but he got me thinking about the whole process.  As a result I have decided to, and indeed have, changed some settings that may make the blog easier to read. 

So, no more comment moderating, for now.  I turned on the moderation many years ago in response to some comments that came in the form of personal attacks on other readers.  That has not happened at all since that first burst of negativity, so maybe we'll try it with no moderation. 

I also activated the "type the magic word" feature for leaving comments.  The Help feature says that the purpose is to intercept spam.  I suppose that's a good thing, and not too much of an imposition. 

Upon reflection, I do think that the moderation feature may have discouraged people from commenting.  With that feature on, someone writes a comment and it does not appear on the page until the next day or so when I've had a chance to approve it as a "pending comment."  I'll admit that if I were the commenter I'd be wondering if it were possible for me to leave comments.  So it's off, and comments should now appear immediately. 

Thanks for your patience, dear readers.