Comments, Spam, and Having to Wait

Comments on A Catholic Citizen in America will be moderated from now on.

Sorry about that. I like to see the comments I make show up right away, and figure that you probably do, too.

Comment Moderation: Why This Change?

On the other hand, I've been getting too much obscene spam: which I don't like to see, and figure you may not, either. Particularly if you understand the language it's written in.

Unlike most of my blogs, comment moderation here may suggest that I'm engaged in censorship: removing comments that do not support my view. That's not what's going on here.

I've been finding, and removing, increasing numbers of comments which consist of links to pornographic services.

Catholicism is About the Real World: Which May Explain the Spam

I think the reasons for A Catholic Citizen in America's having received a disproportionate number of these - regrettable - comments is this blog's content. I discuss my view on what it's like to be human, Catholic, and an American citizen. I'm discussing some of the same aspects of what it is to be human that are exploited by pornographers: from a different point of view.

I suppose it's inevitable that their marketing efforts will find this blog and try to post links to their online services.

Excuse Me While I Rant

Maybe I'm taking this too personally, but I found it insulting that the most commonly-used language in these porno comments has been Chinese, with Japanese running a distant second. I'm somewhat familiar with both languages - and do not appreciate the implicit assumption that an English-speaking westerner is too ignorant to understand what's going on.

Which is another topic.

Being Polite to Visitors

More to the point, there's a pretty good chance that a visitor to this blog understands these obscene comments better than I do. And I don't want to subject anyone else to the sort of thing I've waded through.

Watch Your Language

The only language you can be sure that a reader of this blog will understand is English.

I speak - and write - in the American English dialect of the upper Midwest, but try to avoid terms which would be unfamiliar to, say, an English-speaking resident of London or Ludhiana. For example, I could write "That klutz is dynamite with glitches, but his reason for wearing that cheesy outfit was lame" - and you might understand what I meant.

Or, not.

So: if you're trying to communicate here, use a language that we'll all understand, please.

More: There's Always More

I rambled on about this more, in another blog:

• "Lemming Tracks: Comments and Spam"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (February 16, 2010)