Monday, December 28, 2009

A change I didn't want to have to make

When I first started my blog four and a half years ago I made a decision to allow anyone to post comments, knowing that I had the ability to delete comments that did not contribute to any conversation that I and readers were having.

I soon realized that I needed to impose comment moderation, under which I would be able to review comments, and then reject them or approve them for posting. Comment moderation has worked for most of the life of my blog.

There have been a number of readers who have posted anonymously or pseudonymously while making valuable contributions to discussions, and I have appreciated their comments without regard for whether they agreed with me.

Over the last couple months I have seen a steep increase in the number of spam comments — comments that are utterly irrelevant to the posts in question, and offering medications and get-rich-quick schemes. Comment moderation has given me the ability to reject these submissions a dozen at a time. But I'm tired of dealing with them.

I have decided not to allow anonymous commenting any longer. I regret having to make this change, but it seems to be the simplest step toward stopping the flood of spam.

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