Comments on: The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Comment Bug Edition

By: Janis

Janis — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:16:14 +0000

Johanna said: (I’d love to get old, by the way. It’s better than the alternative.)

Precisely, Johanna! I’m always saying this to folks who tell me how much they hate having birthdays.

By: Revanche

Revanche — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:23:04 +0000

One of my commenters made a very good point about retirees being busier than ever.

Thank you for the mention!

By: nicole

nicole — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:01:27 +0000

6,900 of those (give or take) belong to me– don’t delete them!

By: Pam

Pam — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:12:55 +0000

I knew I should have sent an email to you about my comments not showing up! The last attempt I made was in December. Glad to see you found the bug.

By: Trent

Trent — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:09:52 +0000

Johanna: old is not a number.

By: sjw

sjw — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:08:14 +0000

As a first time commenter, I never got out of moderation the 3-4 times I tried. I finally gave up until the mention of the issue. It did put me off the blog somewhat, though I continued to read, I always wondered why my comments hadn’t been approved.

By: Len Penzo

Len Penzo — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:36:24 +0000

If you ever get a parking ticket give me a call, Trent. I’ll take your case pro bono – er, assuming I don’t get arrested for practicing law without a license. ;-)

Thanks for including me in your round-up!

Best,

Len
Len Penzo dot Com

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:57:35 +0000

If you haven’t already, it’s worth your money to get EA Sports Active More Workouts. Much better than the original in terms of bugs in the software and I find the workout to be more fun and effective.

By: Squawkfox

Squawkfox — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:19:28 +0000

Hopefully my comment makes it through!:D I just wanted to thank you for the mention Trent.

By: Kai

Kai — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:52:15 +0000

Thanks for letting us know what happened with the comments. I too had some sit in moderation hell for long enough to just give up, but it’s nice to know there was an actual problem that won’t be happening anymore.

By: Shevy

Shevy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:34:26 +0000

7,000! Wow.

This isn’t going to represent 25% of all your comments presumably. This problem only happened to comments that had been *sent to moderation*, right?

That means comments with links and first time commenters mostly, or people who usually comment from one computer and are using a different one this time.

Johanna is a very frequent commenter, so it may not matter to her if you just delete her comments that were stuck in limbo. First time commenters, on the other hand, probably ended up with a bad feeling when they tried to say something and it never appeared. They’d probably appreciate it showing up, even long after the fact. Besides, new people read through Trent’s archives all the time and they’ll benefit from seeing these comments.

On a related topic, I’ve had a Facebook friend request pending since I joined FB (Shevys Misc) and you’ve never confirmed me. Do you devote much time to Facebook these days or not?

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:14:18 +0000

And about the comments: Why not just delete them all? Most of them are probably on posts where the discussion has pretty much dried up. And speaking just for myself, I’ve long since assumed that the one or two of them that (I’m guessing) are mine would never see the light of day anyway, so it wouldn’t bother me in the least if you just trashed them and got on with the blogging.

By: Crystal

Crystal — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:09:25 +0000

Whoo-hoo…I’ve been posting comments for the past 3 months that have stayed in “moderation” status. Let’s see if this gets through. :-)

That retirement article is proof that we all see things differently. When I think “retire”, I think financial independence, travel, and volunteer work. When my husband thinks of “retirement”, he thinks of travel, lounging around with his video games, and continuing to officiate high school sports. We love the idea of retirement and look forward to growing older together. Every day alive is a small success, right? :-)

By: DanL

DanL — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:50:07 +0000

Aren’t you using some sort of blogging prepackaged setup like WordPress or Drupal or something?

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:38:05 +0000

“I think the biggest problem for many of us when it comes to talking about retirement savings is that we simply don’t want to “retire,” because often the word “retire” comes with a sense of being old and idle and incapable, whether that’s actually true or not. We don’t want to think about being the generic definition of a retiree.”

That would almost have made sense if you hadn’t included “old.” You’re saying, basically, that you don’t want to think about getting old, and therefore you don’t want to prepare for it.

(I’d love to get old, by the way. It’s better than the alternative.)

Watching my parents enjoying their retirement (they’re both 63 now, and they’ve been retired since they were 58) has only confirmed my feeling that I want to retire someday, preferably before I hit 60. They divide their time between my childhood home and a cabin overlooking a river in Maine. On nice days they go kayaking on the river (which is tremendously good exercise, and which makes them a whole lot less idle and incapable than I am). My mom volunteers at a botanical garden, and my dad builds model trains. They travel frequently – they just got back from a week in Florida, and they’re going to South America next month.

And the thing is, neither of them had *such* a high-paying career. My dad was a civil engineer, and my mom was a high school teacher (and she took ten years off from her career to raise my brother and me). This is what’s possible in a lifetime of being sensible with money. I find them an inspiration.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:16:19 +0000

“These articles usually focus on Here are three recent ones.” ?

Trent, is it so hard to proofread articles before you publish them?

By: lurker carl

lurker carl — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:05:52 +0000

What a job, best of luck slogging through all those comments. Isn’t modern technology wonderful? Can’t live with it and can’t live without it!