Why are comments moderated?

I just realized that, as an advocate of free speech, I thought it might be wise to post an explanation of why comments are moderated here.

The explanation really is quite simple: spam. I moderate comments so that I can keep out the spam. If you are a human posting a comment, it will get approved. If it does not get approved, it must have appeared to be spam ;) Sure, I use a ton of anti-spam measures both on the blog and on the forum, but by requiring moderation of your first couple of comments, I add myself as the final anti-spam measure. After you've been approved twice before, your comments should be auto-approved. The restrictions on the forum are the same (two approved posts, then auto-approval kicks in), and, unfortunately, approved comments do not count towards posts and approved posts do not count towards comments. The only other difference with the forum is that off-topic posts will be moved to a more appropriate location, but will not be deleted.