Housekeeping Note:
Yes, we realize getting moderated is a pain. Yes, it is automagic thanks to WordPress. Yes, we can blacklist certain words, IP addresses, etc (you might recollect we had to block a whole chunk of a certain foreign country some years back?). NO, we canNOT whitelist you. Not by IP, not by handle. It is NOT a feature WordPress offers. Believe you me, if we could, we would, because for whatever reason there are half a dozen known regulars who get spam trapped regularly. Compared to the actual thousands of spammers and trolls that WordPress traps each day, it’s not bad.
Neither of us, as much as we love you, can spend all day at the computer letting comments through. We try to make sure one of us checks at least twice a day to let your brilliance through. And you really don’t want Sarah sitting here all day, because then you don’t get stories. Me, you don’t pay enough for that job: I’m one of those multiple-small-business-women, and you’d need to replace the rest of my income. But you can submit bids, if you really want to.
According To Hoyt 
I’m just happy to have not been voted off the island yet…
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Check.
Status quo works.
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For some reason, the song “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing (When You Talk About You-Know-What)” comes to mind. Don’t type those words, or in that way, or too much, or too little, or you know what will happen to your comments. Who knows what those words might be today? No one.
[Yes, the song alludes to Irish politics. For the longest time I thought it was about the, ah, Good Folk under the mounds.]
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If I just link into the site, I usually just see the ability to post. If I come into the site from my WordPress account I usually see the ability to edit or delete my post if I got a bit too excited with the enter key.
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Hmmm
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“But you can submit bids, if you really want to.”
That’d be giving you da bidness, and ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat!
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I originally read that as “birds.” Mayhap I needs a prescription, mayhaps it’s just oldness and tiredness.
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Testing auto-moderation
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It works! No Fords or Chevies or Teslas or other cars visible.
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I believe I’ve only stepped into the modhole once. IIRC, that was a day that I was replying so fast that I got tagged as a bot. (I have perfectly round eyes, cannot stand borscht, and do not face east the few times I break out in prayer. Please take note, WPDE…)
OTOH, the WordPress system, in my experience, is FAR better than that of Disqus, and the Tube of You is even worse.
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I fall under moderation a bit more often than I’d prefer. Usually it’s when I’m wordy, and/or using proper nouns (whether politely or twin-middle fingers). Occasionally, it’s when WP(DE) feels like it. Go figure.
FWIW, I don’t have an account with WP. No idea if that would help. Might try it…
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The world is full of awful software packages, or and of software that becomes awful under the usages and lack of proper maintenance that it sees.
A package can be the best of the available options that do the thing, and still be pretty bad, missing features, etc.
I know about wordpress, I know about some of the alternatives in that space, and I know that I am not skilled and knowledgeable as a web programmer, or web admin. So I actually do know that I could not do better, for the available budget.
WordPress is functional compared to some.
I do not care for its every change. I understand that I do not have a bunch of the inside baseball, and that can legit be important to why some projects actually had to change some features.
Anyway, if we compare a blog software to something that isn’t a blog software, I’m a bit more concerned about fanfiction dot net. They have some sort of server consistency/caching thing developing, so some times one of the few stories I follow there has been updated for weeks, and yet I can trigger the “maybe it has just been updated” “it is not there” message.
Yesterday had some sort of patch roll out to the linux kernel officially, and whatever it was is enough of a priority that it went out to everything that they list on the front page. Including to one they had previously labeled EOL, if I recall correctly.
This is probably an interesting time to be dealing with software, but software is normally ‘interesting times’.
Right now, people are developing worse software, and people are developing better software. Maybe there will be some nice surprises.
For now, many people have limited hours for searching or tracking alternatives.
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For what we pay here, we deserve….
Sorry about that. I just remembered that we don’t pay for access to the Diner. [Very Big Crazy Grin]
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If you’re not paying, you’re the product.
Wait, what kind of diner is this, if the dragon is possibly on the menu?
..backs out slowly, whistling.
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Sometimes you are the product even if you are paying.
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I wouldn’t go making jokes about drakonphagy around these parts. We have at least ONE known dragon and perhaps several incognito ones floating around. Drakonphagy may not get you moderated, but it might get you eaten, and that is a far more permanent fate.
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Did something happen?
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Something or other on the recent posts triggered a wave of moderation.
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Oh, don’t say it like that – it sounds too much like something fun crowds at college football games used to do (do they still do the wave?). Next thing you know the Huns will organize a mod wave and you’ll be up all night plucking post after post in sequence out of mod purgatory.
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err, Sarah and her loyal minion, I mean.
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The first rule of mod club is nobody talks about mod club.
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I consider it a small price to pay to be able to read your thoughts and articles.
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I wish WordPress had a whitelist or something similar. It’s a waste if you guys have to go fishing in the spam trap all the time. (Glad it’s catching most of the spam, though. This place is nicely troll-free.)
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I agree. I’m not enough of a happy warrior to appreciate the presence of trolls.
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Yeah, as I noted yesterday, even though it caught one of mine for no apparent reason (no forbidden phonemes) I am not complaining. The absence of anything other than the occasional chew toy here is one of the main reasons I am here.
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I blame wordpress entirely and I don’t sweat it much.
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Thank you, Holly. Thank you, Sarah. It’s hard to be grateful enough for all the good things around us; we only have a finite supply of gratitude, and mine is rather small to begin with. But ATH is a wonderful place for persons of a certain grateful, Usain, thoughtful, and humorous disposition.
And even for people like me who fail some of thse categories.
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Yes, Thank You , thank you, Mucho Gracias, and many other variations!
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RRRAAAAWRRRRR!!!!
[insert forbidden word here]
That that, WPDE!
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Fnord?
Mellon?
Q’pla! ?
TANJ?
TANSTAAFL?
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Well, I can’t really say. Forbidden, you know.
But F’NORD! is good, we’ll run with that. ~:D
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Thank you Sarah (And Holly !!) for doing what moderation you have time to do. WP is imperfect but seems at least to work moderately (No pun intended) well sans its well known quirks. The blog doesn’t provide food or shelter or keep the wolves from the door so it is at best a second priority (likely really third or fourth).
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