Back of the Envelope

The comment spam has started to become a problem. I considered several possible solutions, but the one that seemed like it would work best for me is to require my approval before a comment will appear on a post. This would not work if my posts generated lots of comments and debates between commenters, but as I only get the occasional comment, letting it await my approval before it appeared seemed the easiest and most transparent solution. If I get complaints about it, I may switch over to another solution, such as requiring accounts which must be approved by me. I like this one less, as there's no way for me to tell who's a spammer until after they've been approved. It's real advantage is that it puts a higher threshold that the spammer has to get past before they post.

In anycase, I don't stop posts because I disagree with them or because they insult me, merely when they're spamming this blog. Now, if I could just do the same for trackbacks.

Wondering what became of this blog? I'm not posting as much as I used to, and it's usually just short posts linking to other people. Well, generally blogs wax and wane in their content, sometimes posting a lot, and sometimes very little. Right now, my blog is at a slow point as I'm focused on other things. I expect that I'll be posting more at some later date, but it won't be right away. Meanwhile, other bloggers are posting a lot. Doc Rampage, for example, has a lot of posts, on subjects ranging from evolution to the liberal answer to Coulter. He has interesting stuff to say on all of them, and numerous debates going on in his comments. Have a look.

In short, I don't have one. If you send an e-mail to me, or post in my comments, I may very well hold it up for either praise or ridicule, as it deserves. One thing I won't do is give out your e-mail address or personal information, not without permission, but I'm not reluctant to link to your sites.

That said, I rarely draw attention to comments. Positive or negative, they can usually stand on its own. Most of what I get is spam anyway. Trolls and spam feed on attention, and I don't like giving it to either. I will delete spam without hesitation. I'm a bit more reluctant to delete trolling posts, as I don't like deleting comments that disagree with or even insult me. If the language is foul or if it's irrelevant to the post it's commenting on, I'll do it, but otherwise I'll let it stand and destroy it's own credibility.