7 Things to Keep In Mind When Commenting Here

I try not to ask much of people, but due to some individuals trying to manipulate the search engines for their own personal gain at the expense of honest bloggers everywhere, there are a few things I must ask of you. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I assure you it is the best I can do to reward legitmate commenters while keeping the spammers out. I’m sure you don’t like spam any more than I do, so I hope this ounce of prevention will go a long way towards finding a cure. So with that out of the way…

(Obligatory Notice:) By leaving a comment, you acknowledge that you will abide by the commenting rules outlined below. Failure to abide by these rules may result in temporary or permanent removal of your commenting privileges.

  1. Please note that the first comment made by any commenter automatically go into moderation. This is meant to cut down on the number of spammers that try to hijack the site for their own nefarious purposes.
  2. Please do not use SEO keywords in the name field when making your comment. Your comment may be edited (including but not limited to having the name “de-linked”) or marked as spam if it appears intended for SEO purposes. Just to clarify, the name “Shady Eddy” is fine; “Shady Eddy’s Bail Bonds” on the other hand is not.
  3. All comments that include any links will automatically be placed into moderation. I’m trying to find a way to allow registered users (subscribers) to bypass this; if you know of or care to release a WordPress Plugin under a free or open source license (or better yet, put it in the Public Domain), please do not hesitate to tell me.
  4. Once you have made five quality comments, all rel=”nofollow” attributes will be removed from your comment links and name profile. Yes, this does mean you will get Google’s PageRank “juice” flowing from my blog entries to your site.
  5. Please try not to swear (too much). Some is acceptable when done in context, but try to keep it “PG”. I am sure some of you have heard of George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words”. If you have, well you already know what not to say here. Some otherwise inappropriate is acceptable when done in context, but do try to keep it reasonable.
  6. It is strictly forbidden to post any link, make reference to, or mention the ability to make available through any manner any items of questionable nature. This includes the acquisition of or sharing of ANY copyrighted material obtained through any unauthorized or illegal means, from any location, be it on the Internet or not. This includes programs such as Kazaa and those like it. If you post or re-post materials from other Web sites, Web pages, Web logs (blogs), message boards, newsgroups, books or other media, credit should be given whenever possible.
  7. Anyone caught violating these very simple guidelines three times in a calendar year will be prohibited from participating in any discussions indefinately. There are no exceptions.

If for any reason one of your comments gets deleted or otherwise does not appear, chances are Akismet ate it. Send me an email and I’ll do my best to retrieve it for you.