I’ve been meaning to post a comment policy for ages. This post is not a result of any particular comments I’ve received lately but rather a piece of administrative housekeeping.

Thank you to everyone who comments on this blog. It lets me know that I am not posting in a vacuum. I get really excited when I open my email and a ton of comments pour in!

So the official Travels With Miranda stance on comments is:

-I receive all comments by email, regardless of the age of the post. So you do not need to email me to let me know you commented on an older post.

-All comments on this blog are moderated unless you are a previously approved commenter. So if your comment does not show up, please do not recomment. I will get an email with the comment and if it is legitimate, I will approve and reply to it.

-Legitimate comments with a lot of links or no text (such as someone just commenting with an emoticon or with a punctuation mark) may end up in my comment spam folder. I do not get these comments by email. I go through the spam folder every few days and usually catch the odd legitimate comment, but if I don’t, please don’t be insulted. I get hundreds of spam comments every day and out of the thousands each month, I might get one legitimate comment in there.

-I reserve the right to edit comments. For example, sometimes someone will post a comment with typos and then comment to apologize for the typos. I will delete the second comment and fix the first one (I will not correct typos until the commenter points them out). Another example is someone who has an afterthought; I might merge the two comments together. A third example is someone who posts erroneous information and then follows up with the correct info, I will delete the incorrect information.

-I do not heavily moderate comments, unless I feel that they are particularly inflammatory and will not lead any valuable discussion. I will never delete a comment from someone respectfully disagreeing with me or offering a contrary opinion.

-If your troll comment is particularly good, you may warrant a post where I will mention you by name and post your contact information.