comment policy

I've never formally articulated my comment policy, but a few recent comments have made it clear to me that I need to outline what type of comments I will not accept.

No, I'm not referring to the ongoing debate in Where's the Climate Data? Disagreement — even sharp disagreement — is fine.

I'm talking about the commercial spam. If you leave an advertisement as a comment, it will be deleted.

When I started this blog, I allowed all comments. Then I started getting spam, and I deleted them as they came up. After a few weeks of this I added CAPTCHA to filter out the spambots.

On September 6, 2007, someone broke the CAPTCHA and left more than two dozen advertisments for World of Warcraft Gold. In response I silently changed the comment policy.

I now no longer use CAPTCHA. Posts fewer than 14 days old I monitor regularly. I have deleted and will continue to delete any commercial comments found on new posts. All comments on posts more than 14 days old will be sent to me first for moderation.

When you drop by to say "...please where can I buy a unicorn?" your comment is innocuous enough to be approved. But when you return the next day to post an advertisement for cialis, you'll have no such luck. So whoever is doing that, please stop.

That is all.

blog comment day

December 3 is Blog Comment Day. To participate, all you need to do is

• Comment on five blogs today,


• Including two where you have not previously commented.