We do NOT censor comments on Make Use Of!

In the past, we have had complaints from people that their comments on posts have not shown up and this has led them to believe that we have censored them for their opinions. The most recent complaint was this morning and so I want to address this issue once and for all so that there is no doubt. We want people to have full confidence in the commenting system here and to fully participate in discussions without thinking that we are going to muzzle them!

The bottom line is that we do NOT censor comments on Make Use Of!

As with all other blogs, we get THOUSANDS of spam comments each day with all the usual tempting offers – porn, viagra, male organ extensions, you name it, we get offered it. 99.9% of those automatically get caught by Askimet (Wordpress’s spam filter). Now I try my best to go through those spam comments to find real comments but as you can probably imagine, wading through thousands of spam comments is a tiring and boring task. I can’t – and won’t – go through them all as there are just too many. Now you may say I should do it but if you took on this job, I guarantee you would give up within 5 minutes. You have to see it to believe it.

Now if you write a comment that does not contain a weblink or a word that is likely to throw up a red flag then it will most likely be published right away. If you do enclose a link or a flagged word then it will hit the moderation queue.

Regarding the moderation queue, we do NOT censor comments that are valid comments. The only comments that we delete are comments where the person is clearly spamming the site, and verbal abuse. As long as it is not spam or verbal abuse, we let the comment through, regardless of whether the comment is positive or negative.

All of us check the moderation queue at least once a hour but of course when most of us are away, there will be a bigger delay. So you need to be patient!

So if your comment does not appear and it did not contain spam or verbal abuse, then it was probably accidently snagged by Askimet and nuked. I’m sorry but nothing in life is perfect, especially our spam filters. The best thing to do is try submitting the comment again and if it STILL doesn’t appear after a hour or so, email me at mark AT makeuseof.com with the text of your comment and I will manually enter your comment for you on the site. But of course, if your comment contains spam or verbal abuse, I will refuse to publish it for you.

But I want to make it clear that we definately welcome debate, dissent and arguments. Yes, we have a bit of an ego (which writer and blogger doesn’t?) but the whole enjoyment of a blog is being able to have a debate on something. So post your comments and speak your mind! Tell us when we are wrong! Tell us when we are talking garbage! Just watch for us retaliating!

We do NOT censor you! (Just don’t say any bad words or offer us any porn or pills!)