Comments

With great regret I announce that comments now require word verification.

This is an option which will not allow comments to post unless a 'hidden word' is duplicated in a field on the comments form.

This is the mildest version of spam-filtering available, and I have imposed it only because my blog is slowly being taken over by spammers.

Every day I receive copies of comments submitted by people who have no interest in the context of this website. Their only interest is to promote their own commercial websites. I have made every effort to inform them that their advertising is neither encouraged or accepted here, but they persist.

While they were commenting in 'current' blog articles, it was not too difficult to review all of the articles and remove their comments. I even tried humor, to high-light that I was removing their comments but held no ill will. No joy, they continued their predations on the content of this website. Now they are commenting in 'archived' posts, and it is impossible for me to edit these in detail on a daily basis.

Spammers are vandals, they litter the landscape of diarists with no regard for the authors or the honest participants of the dialogue. They do it to make money, which is not necessarily a base interest except that they usurp control over another's interests even when they know their efforts are not welcome.

I take this step with great reluctance, and in full awareness that I may dissuade people who read this because they are interested in the subject by making it more difficult to comment. If you are not a spammer, and are moved to comment on this website, please understand that I would allow increased spamming rather than to discourage your contribution, if it was possible for me to keep this website clean of commercial advertising.

My hope is that this will at least decrease the amount of comment-spam to which you, who read because you are interested in the subject, must deal with. Please bear with me as I attempt to deal with this plague of varmints.

var·mint (vär'mĭnt)
n. Informal.

One that is considered undesirable, obnoxious, or troublesome.

[Variant of VERMIN.]