I thank you for your reply Mike.  And with the full explanation, now #7 makes a lot of sense; who could disagree with that?  And you're right about your last line as well; most of the time unsolicited advice is seen as criticism, so I'm glad you accepted what I had to say in the manner in which I meant it.

If this is a Wordpress blog there are many other options to use rather than captcha that get the job done and encourage conversation; that's why I brought it up.  And then one can turn off moderation because you're more confident in what's going to show up on your blog.  I'll just mentioned Akismet &amp; GASP anti-spybot in case you're interested; those are the only two I need for all 4 of my blogs.