Pardon the Dust

Alrighty, after some procrastination, I've moved all comments and commenting over to a new system powered by DISQUS. I've also gone back- waaaaay back in the archives and struck out at spam comments with my mighty delete button. So all those offers for drugs and Miley Cyrus sex tapes (I know- WTF?) are now officially cleared from my blog. Most of this spam was, for whatever reason, in Japanese.

There are some added features and functionality. My personal favorite is the flagging feature. After enough people flag a post, it will magically disappear. For now, I'm just hoping it'll help with spam. I've disabled avatars because I think they're just an annoying waste of space unless a majority of people are using them. Tags should work. Posts older than sixty days are closed to commenting. I didn't want to do that, because while digging around and deleting spam that was deliberately placed in older posts I found people were still leaving relevant comments. I may find a way around this, but for now it's something I'll live with.

Anonymous commenters should still be able to comment. Let me know if that's not possible.

Also, to all the nice people who left comments imploring that I write more: Aww shucks, thanks!

Let me know if something goes wonky.

My blog commenting policy remains largely the same as ever, and much of it is unnecessary since I don't run a particularly popular or controversial blog, but it's nice to have:

1.) Don't be a dick. (Ripped from Wil Wheaton's blog.)

2.) It's my blog, and I can delete any comment I choose. Comments that allude to a non-existent constitutional right to squirt digital diarrhea all over a discussion will be deleted with the almighty fury of a cocaine-addled baboon that just got laid off and has discovered that he will need retraining to work a similar job at lower pay.

3.) There are no swear-word restrictions on this blog. I may not swear as artfully as for example, Kyle Finchsigmate over at The [now defunct] Chem-blog, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with it. Just try to be imaginative is all I ask.

4.) Speaking of language, I will assume any comments made primarily in languages I do not understand are spam. These will be deleted unless you provide me with some indication in a language I do understand (or at least understand enough) that you are human. These languages are: English, Arabic, French and Spanish.

5.) Refrain from posting or linking to defamatory or illegal content. Note to international visitors: I live in the US, so as far as I'm concerned, illegal and libelous content is what's defined here in the US as illegal and libelous. If you want to say, "God, the nation, Barcelona" or "Homeopathy is bogus." and it's a risk you're willing to take, knock yourself out. However...

6.) Try to stay on topic. If you want to talk about the merits of Emile Durkheim's ideas on structural-functionalism and how it relates to episode #3 in the second season of Lost- then I had better have said something about it on the post. (Also, if you actually do try to discuss Lost in particular, I will try to find a way to digitally hurl massive objects at you.)

7.) Not technically a commenting policy, but I don't check the email as religiously as you'd probably like. This goes doubly so for people who want me to sell shit for them. I'm not averse to putting a up an ad or two, but seriously- can you at least try to relate your product to chemistry or science? Failing that, can you at least sell something interesting or remotely useful to my readers?