Comment & HTML guide

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• Comment policy
• A tip
• Comment as...(how to comment, including workaround for WordPress users)
• Blogger ate my comment! (if your comment goes nowhere)
• HTML code for comments (formatting comments)
• Privacy

Comment Policy

Feel free to post  a comment.  Comments that are generally polite and on topic are welcome.  I'll draw the line with abusive comments and persistent troll comments.

NEW: No disinformation will be permitted. Such comments will be deleted. (from November 2016)

Avoid personal attacks of other commenters: Steer clear of personal attacks, though you can throw pretty much what you like at me.  (Attack the argument, what people say and do.)

Avoid extreme language not acceptable in normal company, though there's a fair bit of leeway given here.

There is a strict "no violence" policy. That is, no talk of guns and no comments wishing physical harm on people. (That's a personal peeve of mine.)

There is also a strict 'no spam' policy.

Do not post personal contact details of other people: such as addresses, phone numbers or emails. Links to websites listing these are permitted with the proviso as below re anti-science websites. If you want to post your own email address I suggest you do it in the form email at youremailaddress dot com or similar, so you don't get spammed.

Don't post links to anti-science websites. If you think you need to link to a science disinformation or science denying website, try to resist the temptation.  If you can't resist, do not link directly.  Archive the web page first and then link to the archived version.  Here are two options:

http://archive.is/
http://www.webcitation.org/archive.php

If you can't find your comment where you thought it ought to be, try the HotWhoppery.  (If none of your comments appear or all of them disappear without trace, it's probably because you are one of the four or five people who have been banned.)

For more info, click here. (Added by Sou 18 January 2014)

If you're upset with how you've been treated here (especially if it's something I've done) - read this first.

A tip

If you are writing a lengthy comment, I suggest doing that in a text editor such as notepad. There are a couple of ways this can help. First, the comment box is small, so it's hard to read back over what you've written. Second, if you mess up your comment you can correct it in notepad before reposting it.

Comment as...

Blogger has several options for commenting, using your credentials from a Google account, Typepad, Wordpress etc. After you've typed in a comment you will be asked to choose how you are commenting. The drop down list provides the following choices:

If you comment using a Google account you'll probably have more options available, such as being able to delete your comment that you wrote in haste. Also commenting with your Google account will, I think, bypass reCaptcha, which Google no longer allows turning on and off completely on Blogger. I'm not sure about other verifiable accounts (WordPress, TypePad etc.)

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Attention WordPress users: People who have a WordPress account have reported problems. The problem and workarounds are described in more detail here. There are two solutions:

1. Comment as: OpenID with your WordPress address as http://whatever.wordpress.com (replacing "whatever" with your WordPress name.
2. Comment as: Name/URL

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You can also type in your name or preferred pseudonym. Do this by selecting the Name/URL option in the drop down list. You only need to enter your preferred name in the top line (under "Name:"). You can leave the second box blank (the box marked "URL:").

Commenting as "Anonymous" is strongly discouraged. For one thing, you'll risk being mistaken for one of the other zillion anonymice.

Blogger ate my comment!

If your comment doesn't appear at all, then the only workaround that people have suggested is to use a different browser, such as Firefox. I've advised Google but don't know how long it will take to fix.

If your comment briefly appears, then disappears without trace or acknowledgement, then here's a tip from someone who says that Google blogger misbehaves in this manner at times:

One thing I finally worked out (because someone else made a comment about this behaviour) is that if I change my "reply as" option *after* I wrote something, my reply is silently disappeared when I hit "publish" -- it doesn't even get to you. I have to decide *before* I type the first character who I'm going to be.

In other words, before you type your comment, check to see if the "Reply as" box has your chosen name in it. If you need to change it (eg if you comment as someone else on different blogs/subject areas) then do so before you start typing your comment, not afterwards. This is a quirk of Google Blogger and out of my control.

Possible alternative solution

I see that there may be another possible solution, which is to allow third party cookies.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/06/cookie-filtering-and-commenting-ability.html

Your comment will (normally) disappear if you've been banned

The other reason your comment might not appear is if you've been banned. You'll know - it's based on your past behaviour. If your comment has been deleted (shown as "This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.") chances are it will have been published in The HotWhoppery. Or not.

HTML code for comments

Options for html on the Google blogger platform used here are limited.

Bold = <b>insert text here</b>

Italics = <i>insert text here</i>

Hyperlink = <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/">insert descriptive text here</a>

Privacy

Any comments you leave on HotWhopper are considered to be in the public domain.

Your privacy is important. As with most internet websites, HotWhopper uses cookies for statistical and other purposes, such as aiding in checking comments for spam (advertising etc) and sockpuppetry.

The advertising helps defray some of the cost of the blog. Third parties, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to HotWhopper and/or other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DoubleClick and other cookies by visiting Ads Settings and/or aboutads.info.

More details are available here.