I see it as a way for us more seasoned members to approve a comment we deem to be real, not a troll or a spam bot. I feel I'm helping out by approving comments from lower level members, whether I agree with the comment or not.

The comment approvals where lower levelmembers need theri comments approved, at a built in way to stop bots, spammers, and haters from making any real headway onto the site.

When you "approve" a post, you are daying, "yes, I think this is a real person who is nto seekign to disrupt teh site". Yes, when you approve it, it is for the entire site.

FEEL THE POWER! LOL

Anyway, The site is run with a skeleton crews, so the approve thing is a way to free them up to improve the sire rather than havign to monitor all the posts, as members monitor posts for the sit eoperators.