Request

Ladies and gentlemen, I've said it before, I like getting comments on my blog. And in the past, I haven't minded if they came anonymously. But now people are beginning to lie about who they are when they leave these anonymous comments.

Just to let the general public know, I have ways of tracking who is looking at my site. I may not know who you are by name, but I am able to see the times that people click into the blog. I can see how long they are there. I can see where they click to get out. And I can see the IP address unless it's been blocked. This means that I can go in and see what time you leave your anonymous comment, then I can go back and find the corresponding IP address.

Please, feel free to continue leaving your comments, anonymously or otherwise. But do not insult my intelligence by using a fake name when signing your comments. I'm about to call an "anonymous" commenter out. This morning, someone hit my site at approximately 8:23am. The next person to click over to my blog was at 9:13. What does this tell me? It tells me that the three comments that were made between those times were made by the same person.

However, the three comments were supposedly left by different people. One was left without any kind of signature. One was signed "Bill." The other was signed simply "J." On that last one, were you trying to make me think you were Jen? Because she often signs her comments "j" (notice that's lower-case, 'cause that's how she rolls). But you know how I really know it wasn't Jen? Because the IP address came from North Carolina, not California. Yeah, I can tell your general geographic area too.

So, to "Bill" or "J" or Anonymous, don't stop reading my blog. Don't stop making your comments. But own up to them. If you're afraid of someone seeing who you really are or seeing what you're really saying, then don't comment. I don't want to have to start rejecting people's comments. Up until now, I've published every comment I've gotten. I've gone into this thing with my only rule being no vulgarity in the comments, and so far everyone has managed to abide by that. New rule, be yourself. Don't be anonymous, and especially don't pretend to be someone else. It's just rude.