Blog registration to post comments – practical notes

If you want to register or have registered and have not been able to post comments, take note.

My registration form is under constant attack by spammers.  I have to clear dozens of attempts a day at registration and scores of attempts to post comments.

Therefore, I use that ABOUT YOURSELF field in the registration form as a way to sort out spammers from the decent and God-fearing.

If you put something that is vague, generic or neutral in that “about yourself” field, I won’t approve your registration.  Help me know that you aren’t an attacker by mentioning something Catholic.  Maybe… I dunno… your favorite Pope or Mystery of the Rosary or saint or confirmation name.   See what I mean?  Most Chinese or Russian spammers don’t do that sort of thing.

Also, please do NOT use your email address as your username (which will appear on your comments).  I am trying to help you avoid getting unwanted spam.

Finally, you may NOT register using a user name of famous people, even historical figures.  A few people have done that in the past.  I don’t like it and I get to be the benevolent dictator here.

I try to look at the registration queue several times a day.  But your approval (deletion) may not be swift.

It is necessary for me NOT to have a completely open combox here.  I had that for a while and vicious mouth-breathing idiots dumped their bilious logorrhea in here by the toilet bowl load.

Sometimes I wonder what my (already high) traffic would be here were I to leave the combox open, but no amount of traffic would be worth that.

I am grateful to all of you who post thoughtful, helpful comments.

Lastly, check out Fr. Z’s Litany for the Conversion of Internet Thugs (2.0)

UPDATE:

Since I posted this (not very long ago) some registrations came in that I didn’t have to puzzle over… except one, which I let through because what was offered seemed both rare and penitential.  Most, however, opted to add a favorite saint or confirmation name, etc.  That takes away my guess work.  Thanks.