The Polls Are Now Open

Please vote in my exciting polls over there. ==>

In addition to the polls at the right side of your screen, I'd love to hear your comments on how you feel about the word verification and comment moderation features.

But, before you start haranguing me for being stuck-up or defensive or paranoid or whatever, first consider my reasons for using both:

When I started this blog, I received quite a few spam comments. I got more spam than real comments. (Then again, I only had two readers, so maybe that's not surprising). Even with the word verification, I still get an occasional spam comment, but only occasionally. I also don't mind the word verification on other blogs; sometimes they are rather amusing or cryptically on point and I get a chuckle. But I understand some folks really hate it. Here is your chance to tell me how you feel about it.

I've enabled comment moderation only for posts more than a few days old. I do not use it to selectively publish comments; in fact, I've never failed to publish one unless it was clearly spam, or a duplicate (when someone accidentally hit the "submit" button twice). I just use the moderation feature so I will be notified that the comments are there. I love your comments. I hang on your every word. I don't want to miss any of them. But I don't check my email very often -- maybe once every week or two, depending on how busy I am. And although I generally scroll down through the most recent two or three posts to see if there are new comments, I don't want to have to scroll down through all of the old posts every day just to see if I've got new comments. Thus, the comment moderation is an easy way for me to know that I've got a new comment on an older post.

Now that you've considered my reasons, I still want to know if I am annoying you all with one or both of these features, and thereby reducing the number of comments I get. If that is the case, I will remove one or both of them. After all, I hang on your every word. I am a comment junkie. I crave your approval, disapproval, and/or apathy -- so long as it is expressed in comment form.... so I'll do what it takes to encourage more comments, even if it means checking my email more often and/or deleting spam more often. But if you find them only mildly annoying and it won't make a difference to the number of comments I get, I will likely leave these features as they are now.

So, use the polls at the right to register your opinion!

And use the "post a comment" button at the bottom of each post to tell me how much you love me (or not...)!