New Comments Policy

So I think I'm gonna go back to my old comments policy—you need to sign some kind of a name, but it doesn't need to be with an account. I dunno, maybe people weren't sure which accounts they had? It takes a bit of digging, for instance, to discover that your Blogger ID also counts as OpenID—and one honestly might not like one's comments on some ill-tempered geek's pop-culture-and-philosophy blog to lead back, automatically, to one's own blog.

I am changing one thing, though: I will never, no not ever, publish another truly anonymous comment (just writing "—Jim", or whatever, in the bottom, is fine, though). Anonymous commenters are dirtbags, little removed from banditry—and then the dumb apes act shocked when you treat them poorly. How the hell you think your reception'd be, showing up at a Q&A session in a mask?

One of the dumb apes, when I pointed out that commenting anonymously is strike one in the "we assume your good faith" department, actually said, "Right, because 'Sophia's Favorite' is your real name."

Sigh. No, you braindead chimp, I didn't say you had to use your real name; I said you had to use a name. I'm sure the distinction is very hard for you, what with that one adjective, and all.

Or to quote Tycho:

Accountability is crucial—you might recall our theory on the subject—and a fixed persona makes the laws of a microculture enforceable. But the idea that this persona must bear your actual name to lend it value (for you, or for others) is ludicrous.

Yes I did slightly change his formatting. Know what else? I've also translated all the Cardboard Tube Samurai comics into Japanese, and lemme tell you, Tycho's style does not take to languages without relative constructions.