I’ve noticed lately that many readers are leaving two or three versions of a comment. The second and third tries don’t seem to be matters of rethinking things: rather, they suggest that the commenter is uncertain about whether a comment has gone through, or stuck, or whatever the appropriate metaphor might be.
I moderate comments to keep spam and other kinds of unpleasantness from appearing on my blog, which means that comments don’t appear immediately. Not long ago, I added a paragraph to my minimalist comment policy (you see it when you click on a link for comments):
Notice the (easy-to-miss) text that appears at the top of the page after you leave a comment: “Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval.” Comments don’t disappear; there’s no need to repost them.I suppose that this paragraph, like Blogger’s message, is also easily missed.
Reader, keep the comments coming, please. But you can save yourself some tedium if you remember: once is enough.