As discussed a couple weeks ago, and a few times since, you are now required to be logged in – after registering – to comment here at BN. I wasn’t thrilled about having to implement this requirement, but I think the overall commenting experience, both for commenters and comment readers, will improve dramatically.
You should see a link below posts that admonishes you that you have to be logged in to comment, so going through the registration/login steps should be pretty self-explanatory. To the extent they are not, I have created a commenting FAQ to help with any questions you might have.
So, if you haven’t already, feel free to register here. When you sign up, you’ll be sent an activation email to the address you provide. Activate via that email, come back to the site and login, and you’re good to go.
This change should weed out a great deal of the drive-by commenting that can quickly and easily muddy up a quality discussion.
I reserve the right to scrap this change if it proves to be ineffective or actually makes things worse in the coming weeks. Let’s see how it goes, and I hope you all give it your best.