It’s time to bring people up to date on some minor site policy items here at Erotic Mad Science.

Comments and comment spam. In an ideal world, there would be no need to moderate comments at all.  We do not live in an ideal world.  There are a lot of comment spammers out there, and unfortunately there are also some people who troll or otherwise behave abusively   In order to keep this blog from being spammed up, first-time commenters here at EroticMadScience.com are moderated by default.  I will be as prompt as I can about approving bona fide comments, but please keep in mind that it will not always be possible for me to respond immediately to all comments.  Good things come to those who wait…

Also, please note that there appears to be a new trend in comment spam in which someone (or, far likely, some bot) leaves an utterly generic comment on a post (e.g. “I really liked this post which was really interesting and I have bookmarked your blog to visit it in the future.”  The comment then contains a link back to some spammy website.  This tactic appears to be an attempt to escape moderation by making the blogger feel good about verself and let the comment through.  The comments are clearly spam to a discerning eye, and I intend to be aggressive about deleting them.  I do not want to delete bona fide comments unnecessarily, of course, but getting rid of spam is necessary both to preserve my sanity and the reader’s experience.  So a suggestion:  if you are a first-time commenter, it would be a good idea not to write a purely generic comment, i.e., try to write your comment in a way that refers to the post and shows that you are a human being, not a bot.

Trading links. I have received a few requests from commercial sites to trade links.  I’m sorry, but no.  My policy is that links here serve two functions:  either to show the source of material and give proper credit to those to whom it is due, or to provide something that will be of interest to readers of this blog.  When I provide a link, I want my readers to be able to trust that I am doing it because I’ve looked at the link and have formed my own judgment that what’s there is at least potentially interesting to someone reading a given post, or page, or the site as a whole.  To provide links simply as a part of a quid pro quo, even one that might benefit this site by raising it in search-engine rankings, is at least slightly abusive of my readers.

The rule is this:  if you’re interesting to me or my readers, I shall to link to you, plain and simple.  If I am interesting to you or your readers, then you should link to me.  Plain and simple.

Thanks, and now back to your regularly-scheduled mad science.

Added 10a: With respect to the “show that you are a human being and not a bot” remark above, I should note that as a thaumatophile and sci-fi fan I would remiss in not adding, “unless of course your are such an awesome bot that you can convince me that you are human.”  In that case, you’re more than welcome to comment!