phil ringnalda

Today, I had comments moderated twice. I don’t really mind that: if you can’t get spam-free any better way, moderation and keeping it to yourself beats either letting them through, or giving up and just doing without comments. However, neither time was a particularly polished experience.

On one, my comment included a link that would help the post author out. I’m pretty sure it was moderated, either because of that link or because the author chooses to moderate all comments. I’m only pretty sure, because it’s a WordPress weblog, and at least as of that version (and every one where I’ve ever been moderated) WordPress doesn’t think you need to know that your comment was moderated: you just go right back to the page where you posted, as though submitting the comment failed. Do I need to file a bug on that, or do you already have one? That’s incredibly hostile to casual commenters, especially if all their experience has been with things that either don’t moderate, or have a “comment moderated” page.

On the other, running Movable Type, I submitted my comment, and only then was told that if I had a time machine, I could go back in time and sign in to TypeKey, and escape moderation. The standard If you have a TypeKey identity, you can sign in to use it here. message didn’t exactly get that across to me, like an easily-automated Comments are moderated unless you sign in with TypeKey message would have. Do I need to file a bug on that, assuming either of the places I could are still actually active? Or, am I missing something, and announcing that TypeKey is moderation-free, especially in a single standard phrase, would be too spammable?