It is possible to get the best of both worlds by allowing authors to turn on or off this feature on a per-post basis, along with a per-account default. Those authors who want to control comments can do so (along with an indicator to readers the comments being shown are moderated by the author) and those who do not want to control comments can convey to readers that the comments being shown are not subject to author moderation.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
This, of course, comes at a cost: additional UI complexity and the need for somehow getting this mental model we've just spent several hundred words describing into the minds of every author who uses the interface. I'm not entirely sold on the benefits of additional customization outweighing the downsides of additional complexity. We are determined to build the simplest possible thing that can work.
Mental model in six words: "Click here to enable comment moderation"