by Timothy Rutt

A new year is about to begin, and we're putting a new comment policy in place.

One of the requirements of our comment policy (which you can read here) is that we need to have a working email address from all commenters.  The email address is only visible to us, and it's so that we can ask you to rewrite or clarify your entry if needed (usually it's about toning down the language, and most commenters are agreeable).  Also, asking for an email address discourages people from just spouting off in a juvenile manner.  One can use a pseudonym, but we're quite insistent on a real email address that we can see, and up until now it's been on the honor system.

However, there has been a recent rash of comments without an email address, or with bogus ones.  We think that's the equivalent of throwing a rock through a window — and if you don't want to stand up for what you say in any way, why should we hear from you?

Per our rules, we are purging comments that have not followed the guidelines and blocking the senders.  

Today we are also instituting a new policy that requires signing in before comments are allowed. We don't think this should be an impediment to good faith commenters — and no one will know your real identity if you don't want them to.  But we're finding that enough folks are abusing the honor system that we have to tighten things up a bit.