Small Calamities

Your Calamities

Looking at the World Through a Windshield
May 27, 2008 | permalink

Good morning, Gentle Readers.

There have been lots of changes around here. Many of them you can see- the new layout and new look, of course, being most prevalent. And I think the tone of it all has changed, though that line may be more clearly drawn in my head than it seems here on the page, with only these few recent entries for you to process. I think that will become clearer in time.

There are a lot of changes that you can't see, too; changes under the hood, as it were. I took the opportunity of the redesign to upgrade to Movable Type 4.1 (I had been running 3.2). I had been putting it off, since the upgrade from 2.5 to 3.2 was a horrible experience for me, but since I was tearing the whole thing apart anyway I figured I may as well go all the way. It went quite swimmingly, I must say.

One of the big reasons I switched were the far superior spam control tools in 4.1 (as opposed to 3.2). I don't know about any of you, but I get hundreds of spam comments a week, and clearing them out is a real drag. I have been leaning toward a 'Registered Users Only' comment policy for a while now, which I am ambivalent about. On the one hand, I don't like the idea of any closed system or forum; I far prefer a free, open, and easy system for the exchange of ideas. But on the other hand, I am damn tired of stemming the tide of casino and viagra and dating ads.

So, after much consideration, I will soon be turning off the totally open comment system, and switching to the open-est closed systems I could find. Basically, all you have to do is prove that you are a real person with an email address to get through the first stage and leave a comment. After that, you just have to not post a bunch of crap advertisements.

So, starting on June 1st, in order to comment you are going to have to either register as a user of UrsineCalamity.com, or have a TypeKey identity. I am sorry to impose such a thing, but really, I just can't stand the spam.

Thanks for your understanding!