Mike, it’s an edge case for many to be sure (I don’t expect my mother to encounter it often), but just another of hundreds of other reasons to be part of the Indieweb. The “big reasons” sell themselves but aren’t the entire raison d’etre, and I like to document some of the others when I encounter them.

I and others in academia (most of my audience) run up against it fairly frequently in relation to scientific journal articles. It’s particularly egregious when big publishers like Elsevier, who insist they’re adding value for their steep subscription rates, under-manage their sites and don’t always approve comments that further scientific communication or require additional work on their part to editorially change/modify what they’ve published in print.

The particular case that spawned this particular “rant”, still hasn’t “approved” the comment/question I made, yet they approved a dozen or more “me too” congratulatory comments around mine that did nothing to further the conversation in the community in which it was posted.

Further proof that you can’t please all of the people all of the time…