Comment Changes

I've made some changes to my commenting system so I can play with the Beta features of Haloscan. I will be playing with them, and so things might change a bit over the next ... however long it takes for me to get bored with it. The biggest change from the user's perspective is that I'm now requiring e-mail addresses, but not displaying them.

One reason to get your e-mail address is so people can use the funky Gravatar system to add an avatar image to their posts. I don't expect everyone to have an avatar, but I'm certain that some folks will want to. And it requires an e-mail address.

Now, I don't really expect spammers to harvest e-mail from comments, but then you never know. That's one reason I've decided to not display e-mail. I also decided to not show the e-mail because I've made it mandatory. Some people just don't want to have their e-mail floating around out there. If you actually want your e-mail address to show, you need to put it in the comment text.

One last thing. Some of the functions I'm activating are still in Beta testing, so if you notice anything truly odd, let me know so I can pass it on to the Haloscan administrators to fix. If it's so odd that you can't comment, then e-mail me.

BTW: If you notice a little square on other people's comments from Haloscan, it's that Gravatar thing. It's been activated for all Haloscan accounts on a Beta basis, and will show up whenever anyone includes their e-mail address, even if they don't have an Avatar. The Preview button has also been activated for all accounts. People with Premium accounts can edit their templates to adjust the way stuff is showing (like e-mail and avatars). Much of what I'm playing with is completely behind the scenes, but will have effects on what you see.

Update: Oooh, I changed my whole template. I'm still getting the hang of CSS, but it's interesting to work with. This is a neat time-waster. I should be writing a review of the latest Aquaman...