Comment Moderation on This Blog

For the information of our readers it may be of interest to know why comments are sometimes moderated on this blog; normally they are not, but moderation may occur in these three cases:

1. Comments on posts older than 28 days (don't ask me why it is 28 days, it has been like this since the blog started I think). The comment must then be accept or rejected by the blogeditors. This is good because very often we get comment spam, and it is also good for us to notice the comment to the old post. On the other hand, the person who wrote the comment may try several times and think something is wrong. But he or she must be patient until we have had time to read and accept the comment and that may sometime take days.

2. Comments which are published in realtime but are found to be completely irrelevant (spam and the like) or offensive (e.g. ad hominem remarks). This is sometimes difficult to judge. Personally I am perhaps oversensitive as editor (except perhaps in the case of teasing co-editor Peter; but that is mutual).

Update:
3. Individuals can also moderate (i.e. delete) their own comments.