Good advice, and thank you as always!

Regarding censorship, I am sorry that someone made rude comments directed at your wife. Did that person post anonymously?

I would completely agree with your actions if you included a note saying the comment was removed, who left it and why. Censorship also removes accountability. You lose the opportunity to let your community support you. So, from the blogger's perspective, my approach would be to remove the really nasty bits, but make sure there was a record of who did what and why it was removed.

People get mighty pissy when you change history, and changing blog content and comments without any updates is bad form. The worst type of censorship is removing opinions you don't like, e.g. you said I'm “full of it”. Sure, there's a somewhat attached, but what's to stop me from editing you? And any future comments?

Regarding anonymity, I have no problem with your approach. As you say, anyone can easily find your true identity. I don't care for pure anonymity or pseudonyms.

Handling these issues right helps with credibility. At the end of the day, it's all just a bunch of opinions.

1) Moderation: Agree with you 100 percent. It's annoying. And editing someone's comments is absurd.

2) Censorship: In the extreme, I'll continue to censor. Not that I get a lot of comments on my blog, but I had one that made a vague sexual reference to my wife. Even though she thought it was completely harmless, I pulled it. And just a few days ago, after a post on General Motors, someone posted a reply with an obvious sexual reference to one of their car lines (hint: gas hog, begins with the letter “H”). Sorry, but I pulled that one too, and I stand by that decision.

3) Anonymity: This is a tough one for me. I choose to remain relatively anonymous, but gimme a break. It's pretty easy for someone to find out who I am. I simply choose not to plaster my first and last name all over the Web. My blog site link is another matter, of course. Now, if someone is out there day in and day out replying in the most extreme form, I agree–why hide.

One reason we don't provide a delete/edit comments capability on Mix or Connect is to prevent editing the thread. One person mentioned that this was needed to remove any negative comments.

This gets back to the “what if someone posts porn?” question; first off, how often does that really happen? And second, it violates the spirit of the community to censor people with whom you don't agree.

Of course, we oversee the community and take care to make sure people play nicely. This model seems to work.

1) Askimet seemed to be catching all the spam
2) I realized I was slowing down the conversation

Sometimes I get comments that rankle me, such as this one the other day

http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/com…

I try to give a respectful answer and I think that gives the blog more credibility than if I deleted any comments I didn't agree with.

I'd like to add paranoid to that list of people who moderate. I think there's an element of fear that people will post porn (recurring theme) or flame the blogger, the blogger's company, family, etc.

I personally think people who run their blogs this way are full of themselves or are just a bully. I rarely read/visit them after that.

Your first point is most annoying to me, and I can't believe I forgot to mention it. Just like anonymous commenting is suspicious, moderation seems fishy. Maybe less so, but still, you're right. You have no way of knowing what has been censored and why.

Don't get me started on captchas. I'm a big fan of OpenID and us Vidoop to manage mine. No complaints yet. Bonus for me, I know a lot of the people at Vidoop, and I trust them to handle my identity. And I know where they work.

- When *everything* is moderated, how do I know why it hasn't appeared? It could be because someone didn't like the comment or they just missed it. Maybe the odd comment will be moderated because it looks like spam, but *all* of them?

- This one happened to me recently. Someone asks 'does anyone know how this works?'. There are no comments yet, so I take a little time to answer. But the blog owner is in bed, so they can't approve it. So the next person comes along, spots that there are no comments yet, so they take a little time to answer …. Eventually the various comments appear, but until they do, there's no way of knowing whether it's a productive use of your time.

- Oh, one more, and I've raised it with the one example I've come across – first you have a captcha (an excellent one, but that's not the point) *then* the comment is moderated! What's that all about?

For the SAN, please send me the money via paypal and I'll send you a whole SAN in a single box (warning: I may light it on fire…guess what's in the box). I'll let you know when you've sent enough money…keep it coming .

BTW, saw your rant today. Does Dell sell a SAN? Can I buy one on Amazon?

For the record, I like http://www.gizoogle.com as much or more than lolcats, but not quite the same way.

As usual, a thought-provoking and on-point post–thanks!