I had a number of "complaints" in the past few months about the comments section of this blog--basically that there isn't any.

The reason for that I'm told is that moderated approval is too slow, and that's undoubtedly true.

Part of the reason for that is that MovableType "trusted commentators" function doesn't appear to work correctly on our installation. I've put in a support ticket to help me work it out, but in the meantime, I've taken off the restrictions so that comments will be immediately published without authentication.

Why haven't we done this sooner? We've tried, but the junk comments were just overwhelming--hundreds every few hours. I'm hoping the spamblocker software will automatically kick out most of the spam, allowing me to moderate after the fact.

So if you're just itching to comment on our commentary--here's your chance for immediate gratification. I will read them all, and may comment on your comment if it seems to demand a response.

To this point, I've never removed a comment for any other reason than it was spam, and frankly I can't really anticipate another reason for doing so. The way I see it, I'm not responsible for your comments, so if you want to use vulgar language, express racist, violent or otherwise hateful views--that's your name on the comment, not mine.

Which leads me to the other aspect of the commentary on our commentary--read the comments at your own risk. I don't want to get emails chastizing me for the "content" of the comments--its not my content. If on the other hand you find something that Greg, Mark or I write that is offensive--gee!--that's what the comments are for.

If you want to link to something you wrote in your own blog or that someone else has written, but all means do so, but I should warn you that more than one link alarms the spam blocker.