I deleted a bunch of comments recently on this blog plus on several other blogs that I manage. It seems that some people are under the impression that whatever they write will automatically be approved by me.

Oh, they were wrong — so very wrong!

Without going through all of the guidelines for leaving a comment that will get approved, let me assure you that the following types of comments are always summarily rejected:

• You thought that my readers would be interested in Percocet, Xanax, Vicodin, and a host of other drugs. Maybe so, but please take your spamfest elsewhere.

• Your comment was actually spot on, but you got greedy and left two links — one link was in the body of your response, while the other was found in your screen name. All right, I’m very generous with link love, but my limit is one per comment. No adult sites!

• You left the usual –I didn’t understand everything you had to say, but thanks for sharing — non-comment, therefore I deleted what you had to say and urge you to come up with an original line next time.

• The third, seventh, eleventh and seventeenth comments were left by you, but you changed your name and links just to get some juicy back links. Sorry, but your I.P. address was the same each time, an easy tactic to uncover. Besides, real responses rule!

• You managed to find comments open on an older article that recently achieved a ranking of PR3. Trouble is, you changed the subject of the conversation to suit your own purposes. Otherwise, I would have approved what you wrote…doh!

• The conversation was going fine until you decided to hijack the thread. Where are your manners? Stay focused and remember that the internet isn’t about me, me, me! Or should I have said, “You, you, you!?”

Over 90% of the comments left on my blogs are approved and I even go through my Akismet list and pull out those comments which shouldn’t have been flagged.

Am I a comment control freak? You betcha! But, if you use your smarts then you’ll find that I will approve what you have to say, allowing you to get some ranked or unranked link love in the process.

Just don’t tick off the clown — he ain’t wearing no smiley face!

All  eight comments were spam — porn messages with links to adult sites.

Earlier this week I noticed that several other porn messages were being left and I deleted those immediately as well. Curiously, Akismet and one other spam detector are active and updated, so I’m not sure why these snuck through.

Not wanting this blog to turn into a breeding ground for spam comments, I have modified this blog’s commenting policy as follows:

• All blog comments will be held in moderation. They will be approved (or rejected) as soon as possible, but definitely not right away.

• Adult and other spam messages will be identified and Akismet notified.

• Any messages not adding value to the blog will be deleted. I’ve let some minimal value one-liners through lately, but I’m not going to allow this practice to continue. I’m looking for comments that can contribute to a discussion.

This blog will maintain its no-follow policy, at least for now. However, I’ll be deleting comments that link to bad neighborhoods or those off topic.

I hate to have my hand forced in this way, but I really have no other choice. Thank you for understanding.

Specifically, I entered the coding to separate regular comments from trackbacks/pingbacks and, instead of separating them into two neat categories, nothing showed up. I double-checked my work and confirmed that the steps I followed were correct. Clearly, there was something within the Aquarium theme that was blocking the coding changes from taking place.

Instead of looking for the problem, I decided to swap out themes. This was the last thing I wanted to do with a week and a month coming to a close on the same day. So, I pulled up the trusty (if not bland) WordPress 1.6 theme, made some color changes, and what you are seeing is what I’ve decided to go with for now.

I had planned to make a theme change after the first of the year anyway, as a refreshing of a blog’s appearance is nice to do from time to time. I have noticed that I am not the only one who changes themes on a regular basis, but I was wondering how often other bloggers make a change and the reasons behind these changes.

My questions for you today are:

How often do you change your blog’s theme? Why?

By the way, if you want to separate comments from trackbacks/pingbacks you can snag that code from several different blogs. I visited Michael Martin’s Pro Blog Design to find the information I needed to make what I believe is an important layout change for my readers.