Uppity Wisconsin

So it's like this - for the past 2 months we've been deluged with people signing up for accounts with the intention of only writing spam articles on the site that link to products, porn, and other commercial sites.  Although our spam filtering software has taken care of most of this, it's still become a full-time job to weed out the garbage that is getting through.  Therefore:

• We are now only letting people have accounts on the site if they tell us what they have in mind first.  So we will want to know what your interests are, and what (in general) you're interested in blogging about.
• If you receive an account you will be able to write blog entries, and your comments will appear immediately rather than waiting for editor approval.
• Any postings that we consider to be commercial spam will be deleted with a vengeance, and your account on the site will be suspended -
• If you've applied for an account recently, and it didn't get approved - please drop us a note as listed below.  I'm deleting the whole queue, since there are hundreds of them in there, and I just don't have the time to read them all.
• If you already have an account, the next time you log in you will be asked to agree to some terms and conditions, and a privacy policy.  For various legal reasons, we've changed these from the terms and conditions you agreed to originally.  This will only happen once (or will not happen again until we change them, in any case).

So - if you would like an account, go to the contact page, and drop us a note letting us know why you want an account.  Just saying you want to contribute won't be enough, unfortunately, since everyone says that. We'll approve most anyone who makes an argument that is at all convincing.  If we decide to let you have an account, you will receive an email invitation.

We're truly unhappy about this - but the incredible numbers of spam accounts are giving us no other realistic choice.