June 7, 2013

A chilling state of affairs

It's creepy that I had to enable comment moderation on the blog but I had no choice. It's not because I want to filter your comments and only let through those I approve of. You can say crazy stuff. I'll let it through.

But if I leave comment moderation off, the class of internet low-life that I refer to as the Mad Pasters goes wild. You know them. They're the ones who troll their way through the atheist blogs, pasting irrelevant babble in the comments. Not surprisingly, these comments invariably end with a string of bible verses. And at times, they include links to dangerous web sites. I don't want to waste my readers' time, nor do I want to put them at risk.

As for the letter-identification process, I know it's a pain but without it there would be hundreds of people posting spam and links to phishing websites. Identifying those squiggly letters proves you're not a bot created to spread spam. It's an irritating but worthwhile system.

So comment moderation is turned on. I know this has a chilling effect on others who want to comment. But despite the barriers, you can comment. Give it a shot. If you don't have an internet identity, anonymous works fine. But it's best to sign up somewhere for an identity. I use "writenow", my Google blogger identity, whenever I want to post a comment somewhere. It just makes things simpler.

Anyway, I wanted to explain this to new readers. I do want your comments. I just don't want the chaff -- especially the religious and dangerous chaff. Okay. Over and out.

Image: Wikipedia Commons

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