A Plea to Blogspot Bloggers

Well, to some of you, anyway.

One of the reasons we all write blogs is because we want people to read what we have to say. One of the ways we generate traffic to our blogs is by commenting on other blogs–like yours! Then, people click on our names, and are linked our blogs, maybe comment, and generate traffic to their blogs. Eventually, that karma is directed back to YOUR blog…and the world is a better place.

But…a lot of you Blogspot.com bloggers have your comment page set up so we have to use a Blogger.com ID to post comments. This is Not So Good, because when someone clicks my name, for instance, they get sent to this page instead of directly to my blog. Now, I do have the Aerie linked to "My Webpage" in my Blogger.com profile, but that’s an extra click, if someone stays on the page long enough to see the link.

I appreciate your desire to avoid comment spam: Everyone’s first comment here waits for my review before being posted. And I know a lot of people don’t like "Anonymous" comments (can’t stand ‘em, myself–and yes, I know "Kestrel" is a more-or-less anonymous pseudonym–but you can find a person behind the nom de plume with a modicum of effort).

An unfortunate drawback to using Blogger is you can restrict comments to registered (Blogger) users, with or without moderation, or open it up to anyone, including Anonymous, with or without moderation, but you can’t allow comments by "all except Anonymous" (i.e., require a name and URL–which could be phony, but at least someone has to take the time to type in–or autofill–the blanks). On the other hand, Blogger does employ "word verification" which can defeat a LOT of automated spam.

So…if you’re limiting comments to registered Blogspotters simply because you haven’t gone to your Dashboard to change it, would you consider changing it? Please? Pretty please?