Dear readers. As you may be aware, the presence of spam comments has been gradually rising on this site and has reached a point, I would say, of unmanageablity.

This is a problem in no small part because this site is running on very old software that hasn’t been upgraded since 2004 and that nobody uses anymore. I am accordingly looking into the possibility of upgrading it or transferring the site to other software.

But that all sounds like a pain in the neck, so for the time being I am doing the simplest thing, which is to make all comments subject to my approval. Where you used to get to see your comment appear immediately — except when for some reason the browser screwed up — now you will probably see something like “your comment is being reviewed” or whatever.

Know that it is being reviewed solely in the sense that if it is SPAM it will not go up, and if it is not, it will. I do not have editorial principles beyond that. As should be clear.

Sorry to do this; I know from my own experience that the instant gratification of the comment immediately appearing is important to making commenting seem worthwhile. Please do it exactly as much or as little as you did before. Knowing me, the “review” and approval will probably happen almost immediately since I seem to check my email once every 15 seconds or so.

I’ll post something if a bigger and better backend change comes to pass.