Comments

Since the beginning I have had comment moderation turned on for this blog in an effort to prevent comment spam. Users either had to have a Type Key registration, and be signed in, to post a comment that would appear immediately. Unregistered commenters had their comments queued until I approved them before they showed up on the site. Comment spam would be held up and I could delete it before it ever saw the light of day. This is good in theory, but there are probably 100 people in the world with a Type Key registration and none of them read my blog. (OK, to be fair every one who has downloaded MT from the movable type web site has a Type Key registration, I’ve got one even.) But it makes for an extra step in the commenting process and who’s got the time?

So I’m trying out a different approach, post a comment, go ahead. I ain’t moderating them. I’m not even going to require a name or an email address.

Operating on the principle that 99.9% of all comment spam is posted to older entries, Alan Carroll has developed a MT Plugin that automatically closes the comments on old entries, called amazingly enough MTCloseComments.

From now on, you will only be able to comment on entries that are still showing on the main page (the last 10 days worth.) If you stumble on an old post and want to comment you will have to resort to emailing me.