Spam/Comments Policy

All comments, whether I know you or not, will go into moderation if there is a link in the comment. Period.

This blog, like all WordPress.com blogs, is protected by Askimet. Askimet is great! It removes about 20-260 spam comments per day, from people selling golf clubs to…well…let’s just say a different sort of club.

Askimet is pretty aggressive, and I’ve found that if I don’t check it daily, some comments just disappear like a sock in the big spinning Askimet comment dryer. I can’t always catch and rescue each and every comment, so please don’t take it personally if your comment is moderated, and then somehow never appears.

30 days after it’s posted, a blog post’s comments close. This greatly cuts down on the amount of spam I get, and random questions about 3 year old topics.

Comments written in languages other than English sometimes look like spam (they show up as “wsar gyy erqa dppoyuii!” on my screen.) I will usually delete those, since I don’t have a way to tell what is bad font compatibility and just plain old spam.

Good and Bad Behavior

Of course, some of you should take it personally when I block your comments, since I am not going to have a free-for-all here. Don’t like it? Think I’m oppressing your freedom of speech? Well, get your own blog.

I welcome comments that disagree with me, but I won’t tolerate drive-by trolling. This is my blog, and I get to decide what is inappropriate, hateful, or just plain nasty. Period.

In general, I’ve let people say pretty much what they want, with only a couple of exceptions. The comment rules are posted below.  If you violate these rules, I will do all or some of the following:

  • Moderate your comments
  • Disemvowel your comments
  • Block future comments
  • Report you to your IP provider (if it’s way over the top)

Here’s the rules:

  • Do not spoof other people’s names or web addresses
  • Do not threaten physical violence or use language that is racially hateful. (Yes, I mean the N word.)
  • Do not try to convert, witness, or otherwise bring me to see the truth of your religion (whatever it is), after I’ve asked you to stop the first time. I’m not in the market for a change.
  • Do not post the same thing over and over and over and over and over….
  • Do not post the entire content of a long article or one of your posts in the comments here–a link and a summary is just fine.
  • Do not try to sell items, ie, spam for products.

Here’s the list of folks who are on the permanent moderate list for bad behavior: