If you hold back anything, I’ll kill you.
If you bend the truth, or I think you are, I’ll kill you.
If you forget anything, I’ll kill you.

In fact, you’ll have to work very hard to stay alive, Nick.

Do you understand everything I’ve said?

Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.

Rory the Breaker

I’m deeply sorry that my first post of note in weeks must be about such a pedestrian topic, but I feel it is time to publicly edict certain rules about commenting on this fine piece of thought-challenging writing we call our blog.

Ironically, while strait-laced spam (you know the kind: congratulation on the neatness of your post punctuated by a recommendation for this interesting site about horses playing texas holdem’ with mature grandmas) is no longer an issue, “semi-spam”, or plain non-spam-but-moronic comments have become a real problem. I blame Google, and the thousands clueless imbeciles it washes up on my shores daily.

For the first time in History, it is possible to get a glimpse into the collective IQ of a sizable share of this planet’s population. And trust me: it is rather depressing. Not that I had much doubt left, but this shall go a long way in reenforcing my personal opinion that, as a species, we are frighteningly dumb. How we managed to make it thus far is beyond me… and a strong argument in favour of Intelligent Design theories… I mean, there has to be a God out there. A God that, for some unfathomable reason, is personally attached to the survival of a species who considers “I like cats!!!!11111” and “u R s0 kewl!!!” to be the best possible use of nigh-boundless, worldwide inter-communication.

Don’t get me started on Google queries.

Anyway, I have vaguely toyed with the idea of withdrawing altogether from Google (supremely ironic, considering how I am currently in the middle of a tedious exchange with their support to understand why this page suddenly disappeared from all query results), but there still are many pages on this site (especially technical ones) that serve a precise purpose for some Google queriers (those usually do not leave brainless comments either), so the solution would be a little overkill. Instead, I have simply decided that, from here on out, there will be no leniency in my approach to moronic commenting.

Most likely, if you are reading this, the rules below do not even apply to you: semi-regular commenters to this blog are free to do whatever they want. I am only concerned with those one-hitters who leave me scratching my head, wondering whether that incoherent sentence left on a 2-year old post is spam, an attempt at communication by an alien civilization or just further proof that trained chimpanzees shouldn’t be left alone with an internet connection…

I used to let these random comments be, on the basis that they didn’t hurt anyone (except maybe my sense of taste, but then again, it’s easily offended, so)… On further reflection, I decided that it does bother me to have my comment sections slowly filling with irrelevant, illiterate, off-topic junk. I see no reason to put up with this crap under some non-existent right of morons to express themselves on my pages.

Let me spell it out for you:

• If it’s spam (as in “buy this or that” spam): I’ll kill it (duh)
• If it’s overly self-promoting (and I don’t know you): I’ll kill it
• If it contains URLs that have no relevance to the post you comment: I’ll kill it
• If it’s completely off-topic (e.g. contact form material, or comment answering another post): I’ll kill it. And if I’m in a good mood, I’ll answer it through the proper channel.
• If it’s thoroughly off-topic without other redeeming qualities: I’ll kill it
• If it contains more punctuation than alphanumeric characters: I’ll kill it
• If it is written in SMS-speak: I’ll kill it
• If it makes any use of l33tSp34k in a non-ironic way: I’ll kill it
• If it can be summed up advantageously by a lesser variation of: “oooooh… pretty… me likes…” on a post that has long been archived: I’ll kill it
• If you are an MSN Spaces user, chances are I’ll kill it, but only because you will undoubtedly meet most, if not all of the above criteria (surprise me…)
• If your comment looks at me in the wrong way and I’m in a foul mood: I’ll kill it
• If I have any doubt about your comment fitting in one of the above categories and better things to do: I’ll probably kill it, just in case.

In fact: you’ll have to work really hard not to get your comment killed.

Well, “hard” that is, unless your cognitive abilities are somewhat above third-grade level, in which case feel free to blissfully ignore the above rant and keep on commenting in peace: enjoy the quieter surrounding.

Thanks for your time.