Effective immediately, this site’s comments system has been reactivated. There are a couple of changes you should know about:
• You must now have a Google account to submit comments for publication. If you don’t have an account, you can create one by clicking here. It’s free and easy. After you do that, you’ll be able to submit comments the same way you did before, with one exception: Underneath the box where you enter your comment, you’ll have to enter your Google username and password.
• If you know of anyone who is impersonating someone else through this site’s comments system or otherwise abusing comments, you can report it to me through a new Web page you can reach by clicking here. That link, which you’ll also find at the end of individual postings and on the pop-up window for submitting comments, takes you to a form that allows you to remain anonymous or include your name and e-mail address if you want to be contacted.
The changes were necessary because I learned a couple of weeks ago that someone was impersonating a Las Cruces couple, apparently with the intent of trying to discredit certain political groups by submitting comments that made those groups’ members – and that couple in particular – appear to be extremists or nutcases. You can read more about that by clicking here.
Requiring you to register in order to submit comments means you have to provide some sort of identifier – your name or whatever you choose – that will be attached to your comments. That means you can still chose to not reveal your name, but it also gives me a way to contact you and, most importantly, allows me to ban you from using the site’s comments system if you abuse the privilege of participating in the discussion.
Before you begin submitting comments once again, please take a minute to read this site’s comments policy. If you have any questions, e-mail me at heath@haussamen.com.
Let the discussion begin again. Please try to keep it civil. And don’t impersonate other people.
– Heath Haussamen