With Or Without Your Approval?

In the course of visiting other blogs and returning comments I have noticed that quite a few blogs seem to have commenting set so that comments must be approved by the author before they will display.  I don’t remember having the option to choose when I set my blog up.  I must have, but I really can’t remember all the way back to March.  

I don’t have any sort of screening process set up.  For me it would probably turn into one more thing for me to fall behind on or mess up.  I’m not the most technologically savvy person.  

I also think I’ve been fortunate in the comments I’ve received for the most part.  You’re all very nice people!  I can honestly say that most of the comments I’ve received have been kind, helpful, or just pleasant in some form.  There have also been very, very few comments that I thought were probably spam since I turned off the word verification, so that hasn’t been an issue either.  I really hope I’m not jinxing myself here (she says as the mean spammers take over)! 

From my blogging travels there doesn’t seem to be any particular style of blog that requires comment approval or any particular style that doesn’t.  It also seems that people aren’t necessarily using the approval process to eliminate negative comments, which I think would be very tempting for me.  So now I’m curious.

Do you have to approve comments before they’ll show on your blog?  Did you change from one way to the other?  Are you considering changing?  Have you noticed any sort of pattern to blogs that require comment approval or not?  Like I said, I’m curious, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.