Clarification on Accounts and Commenting

I’ve received some questions from a few of you asking me to clarify whether or not you are required to create an account in order to comment on these blog and/or podcast postings.

One of the main reasons why I decided to completely rejigger the website and move to a dedicated server is because our old Libsyn-powered website had NO spam protection measures whatsoever. In late July/early August we got hit by a flood of spams and I said “enough is enough.” So we are now running on WordPress software on a dedicated virtual Linux server hosted at Go Daddy, my hosting and domain name provider of choice.

WordPress provides an excellent plugin called “Akismet” that dramatically reduces (sometimes even eliminates) the threat of comment and trackback spam. When I set it up, however, I mistakenly thought that in order for Akismet to work, I would need to require you to register for an account here in order to post comments. This turns out not to be the case after all.

So, here is the clarification: You do NOT need to create an account on otakunopodcast.com in order to make a comment to any of these blogs or podcasts. There, I’ve said it, it’s official now.

However, if you wish to participate in the Otaku no Podcast forums, you DO need to create an account through the Forum software. The Forum software is a completely separate piece of software from WordPress, and it maintains its own database of accounts. Therefore, if you have already created an account here (on the main blog/site), and you also want to participate in the Forums, you’ll need to create another account through the Forums software. There is no way I can see of linking the two softwares’ accounts databases. (I suppose if I had the services of a class-A software wizard, but unfortunately, I don’t.)

Hopefully this will help to clear up the confusion.