July 23, 2003, 11:59 PM ET
New weblog feature: Reserved comment names
I used to make frequent improvements to the homegrown weblog software that powers this site, but I regret weblog innovation has taken a backseat to other things in my life. Still, I managed to implement an idea this evening that I'd come up with earlier today: Reserved comment names. Let me explain that.
I keep a close watch on this site's user-posted comments, and I do my best to delete spam. But, because anyone can post a comment under any name, there is a chance that one day some mischevious commenter might pose as me, with my name and URL, deceiving the readers of this site until I saw the comment and deleted it.
Such mischief would damage the credibility of this site's comments. But now that can't happen.
Now, every time you see a comment by "Adrian," you can be assured that I wrote it. Why? Because, simply, I'm the only person who can post comments with that name. Likewise, you may not post a comment as "Adrian H." or "Adrian Holovaty," although I will never use those names. If you attempt to use one of those names, you will be notified, pleasantly, that you may not.
Similarly, commenters from the general public may not use "holovaty.com" in the "Web site" form field.
Short of user registration, which I will never implement here, this is the best way I could think of to solve this potential problem.
As for the idea of reserving certain names for certain commenters, I've thought about it, but I have serious doubts about whether anybody would want to reserve his or her name in the Holovaty.com comment system. Let's be honest here: Who cares?
