My Blogger Commenting is malfunctioning: Please read this if your comment wasn't published

It has been quite disturbing to me that I'm getting an increasing number of people telling me that they are sending comments through to me and I'm not getting them.

I appreciate Miguel Guhlin sending me an email and asking about his comment because until this point, it has been in casual conversation that people have mentioned it. 

It has been at least six people that have told me in the past few weeks that their comments are not coming through.  So, I need your help.

My theories on comments:

• I think that sometimes comments with hyperlinks are getting flagged as spam.  I do get some with hyperlinks so I don't know if there is a pattern, if it requires a lot of hyperlinks or what causes this.
• I also wonder if it has to do with time of day or use?  If a lot of people are trying to comment, does it choke?

How do we fix it?
I would like to contact the people at google, but to do this, we need facts.  If you happen to read this and your comment WASN'T published the first time, I'd love to know about what time it happened and (if you remember), what post it was.

I have no idea how much of a problem this is on my blog.  I may find it is a HUGE problem.  I just don't know.

What comments do I publish?
ALL of them, except:

1. Spam (just link to their product, no comment but the link.)
2. Links to porn sites
3. Profanity.  (If I get profanity, I do post a comment myself with a paraphrase such as I did with this expletive laden comment.)

Unfortunately, I've had death threats and people who just plain hate me (including a recent post.)  I've always made it a habit of posting these because as much as it may hurt, it is important to model this for others.

If I never had anyone disagree with me on my blog, you would think I "sanitize" the comments.  I don't.  Period.

Unfortunately, there are some out there that instead of asking me, just jump to the conclusion that I don't publish their post.

Thank you Miguel for modeling such great behavior as in asking me if I got his comment.  I didn't.

I'm frustrated and need some help here.  How much of a problem is this?  Is Blogger throwing the good stuff out w/ the spamwater?

The struggle with posting everything
It is hard to share all comments.  Ugly comments hurt.  I take things very personally when they are personal comments.

However, I'm called to this and ultimately I live for an audience of One.  It is Him I must stand before one day and when I feel like a terrible person, that is what I have to come back to.

We all want to be liked but that is just not possible.

I was totally overtired after NECC and posted some things that I regretted later, so I went back and removed some things from the post (as I said at the top of the post.)  My word choice was seriously lacking and I let my issue with two people at NECC color my entire wording.  That was wrong.  It was the wrong way to write it and the wrong thing to do.

I hope that this openness with the emotions I feel and the struggle with this part of writing for a global audience will help others who struggle with the same thing.

We were talking at NECC over dinner about those who hurt our feelings and I had a great conversation with Jon Becker (Educational Insanity) and Scott McLeod.

It is interesting, from the hundreds of commenters, each of us can name the specific handful of comments, posts, and people who pointedly, specifically launched personal attacks on us on our blogs.  We can name some of the great comments, that is true, but we discussed how it feels when someone launches an attack against, not our ideas, but us personally.

It hurts.

It is so important to know how to disagree professionally.  It is also important to know that we color our thoughts of people through our own lens.  We're not going to "like" everyone and everyone is not going to "like" us.  That is OK.

I hope by educating students on how to disagree with ideas while still being kind to the person behind the idea, that some people can be spared the feelings I felt so poignantly today when one unkind person practically undid all the kindness from last night.

Some of my friends said to take down the comment, however, for now, I'm leaving it.  It is  a reminder of what I hope not to be.  Maybe it makes me look like a terrible person.  It certainly made me feel like a worthless no good.  If you knew how I was raised, you'd know why, but you don't.  You just see what is here, that is it.

Please help me fix this problem on commenting.  And remember, if you have a question you want to ask ME personally, I've always been open about sharing my email.  coolcatteacher [at] gmail [dot] com.

Reach out to the person before jumping to conclusions.   I also appreciate emails about bad typos instead of publicly telling me I'm dumb for mispellings, but I publish those comments too! Thanks.

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