Listening to Ian and Rejoining Rantwick

When I started this blog, I didn't allow anonymous posts, but did not require posts be moderated. No word verification. It was simple and direct. Then, I slipped into the notion that word verification would keep spam away. It didn't. So I went to moderation without the irritating words. Well, Ian caused me to rethink and here is the new, new approach. Like Rantwick, I will allow comments without moderation and without captchas. Actually, I WILL moderate comments on any post over seven days old so spam can only slip in on new posts. I will manually delete spam posts, as I have done anyway so the comment list won't get filled with ads for beach cruisers or questionable pharmaceuticals. Well, some may appear - before I make them disappear. If real problems appear, I will see how to make them go away, but robot proof doesn't do anything as far as I can tell and moderating merely screens the spam differently than wiping it out shortly after it appears. I will also probably turn on the defenses if I'll be away from the blog for a while. I'd hate to be gone for a week only to have to delete a thousand spam comments. Stay tuned and we shall see how this Rantwickian approach works. Perhaps we Yanks can be as civil as our neighbors up in the great, frozen north...