I’ve just made a little tiny change to the way comments are handled on the site, in an attempt to cut down on the somewhat insane amount of spam I get to watch filter through the system and get forgotten about until it’s eventually automatically deleted. It also, conveniently enough, comes with an extra side benefit. To encourage discussion on here, on those rare occasions where that happens, I implemented the ability to have replies to your comments sent to you via email. That, naturally, required that the email address you give me be valid. Spammers, while not necessarily expecting replies to their comments to be emailed to them, don’t necessarily provide you with a valid email address. And, in the rare instances where they actually do, they’re easy enough to be delt with. So, as of about 5 minutes ago, folks commenting here must provide not just an email address, but a valid email address. Sorry jokers, blah@blah.blah doesn’t work anymore (I tested it). If you’re an actual commenter with an actual email address, you won’t see a difference. If you’re a spammer with an invalid email address, you’re probably not actually reading this entry and I don’t particularly care. And if you’re a spammer with a valid email address, you probably aren’t getting posted here anyway. Happy discussing, and hopefully I come up with the occasional thing that doesn’t bore you folks to death.
Thanks to Shane for the idea, and the halfway decent method of implementing it. Now here’s hoping it doesn’t break.