{"id":166710,"date":"2025-02-09T05:49:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T12:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=166710"},"modified":"2025-02-09T10:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T17:18:10","slug":"my-apologies-to-readers-of-feathered-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/09\/my-apologies-to-readers-of-feathered-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"My Apologies To Readers Of Feathered Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

At times I can be a real knucklehead. This screwup is a big deal and I have no acceptable excuse.<\/p>\n

When I first started blogging back in August of 2010, I chose WordPress settings that would require first time commenters (newbies) to have their initial comment approved\/moderated by me. After their first comment, any subsequent comments made by that person would automatically be approved and would appear on my blog without moderation.<\/p>\n

I also set it up so that I’d receive an email containing every “newbie” comment, those that needed approval from me (moderation). That way I’d know<\/em><\/span> when there was a comment needing moderation. Without moderation it wouldn’t be published. But I needed the email to know it was waiting for me to approve it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Screenshot from WordPress Dashboard<\/em><\/p>\n

This is what those settings look like in my WordPress Dashboard. They’ve looked like this from day one and they still look like that. I took this screenshot yesterday. In over 15 years I’ve never messed with those settings.<\/p>\n

But at some point several years ago I noticed that I was no longer receiving “Needs Moderation” emails from WordPress. After confirming that my settings were correct and that those emails weren’t being rejected as spam, I figured I’d just have to live with it. Those comments do show up in my WordPress Dashboard, so my plan was to visit the Dashboard several times each day I published a post and moderate any comments that needed it.<\/p>\n

That’s where I screwed up. Somewhere along the line I inexplicably stopped checking my Dashboard for comments that needed moderation. My only excuse, which is no excuse at all, is my well-known tendency to be an insufferable creature of habit. Somehow, I got out of the habit of checking… so I just didn’t. Apparently for several years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Screenshot from WordPress Dashboard<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, three days ago on a Dashboard page I rarely visit, I finally noticed this (marked by red arrows). I had hundreds of comments needing moderation, going all the way back to February of 2018. This screenshot only shows 329 of them but when I first discovered it there were almost 500 of them. That discrepancy is due to the fact that I immediately approved over 150 of them before I thought about taking the screenshot.<\/p>\n

Further digging revealed that most of the “pending” comments were made by newbies to my blog but dozens of them were made by veterans of Feathered Photography, often (but not always) due to the fact that their names were misspelled (typos), or spelled differently than their original post, so WordPress didn’t recognize them.<\/p>\n

I’m honored when folks take the time and make the effort to comment on my blog and for me, out of negligence, to be responsible for their comments not being published, or responded to, is unacceptable. I’m sure that many of those folks never commented again out of frustration and I don’t blame them. That would be my reaction too.<\/p>\n

Going forward it’s my firm intention to check my Dashboard comments section several times each day for comments that need moderation. And over the next few days I’ll be approving the 329 older comments that still need moderation (it’s a fairly slow process).<\/p>\n

Once again, my sincere apologies.<\/p>\n

Dummkopf<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At times I can be a real knucklehead. This screwup is a big deal and I have no acceptable excuse.<\/p>\n

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