How-To Geek Comment Policy
I've received a number of complaints because comments didn't appear on the site, so this is the official policy on comments for all to see.
1) Helpful Comments are Great
I love it when people leave comments, especially helpful tips or additions to the articles. These types of comments are always approved immediately, and are very important to the life of this site. I also don't mind if you relay that something worked for you, because it helps the other readers know that the tips work.
2) Questions are Always Approved
If you have a question about an article, you are always welcome to leave a comment asking your question. I've found that the majority of the time, questions are answered by other readers before I even get around to it. Note that you can also email me if you feel like it.
3) Homepage URLs are not shown
The comment form has a textbox for "website", and you may notice that it's no longer linked. This is because I've had to deal with a ton of manual spammers, leaving legit comments with legit-looking URLs that redirect to spam. I don't have the time to check every single comment for spam, so it's removed.
Here's What Is Not Allowed Here:
1) I hate spam.
All comments are filtered through the Akismet spam filtering service. If your comment didn't show up, it's possible it could have been caught in the spam filter… although I've found Akismet to be extremely reliable.
2) Links to Commercial Software Will Be Removed
The How-To Geek only suggests commercial software when it's the absolute best tool for the job, AND there's no acceptable open source or free tool available. This is because we support the open source movement wholeheartedly, and free is the best price point for the reader.
3) Personal Attacks
Comments directly attacking the site or one of the authors won't be tolerated, and will not be approved. If you want to criticize an article, feel free to do so, but if you aren't providing constructive criticism, then it's unlikely it'll be approved.
4) Signatures (very very unlikely)
Update 5/8/2008: If you link to your blog in a comment, there's a 99.999% chance that I will delete the comment or the link. Bottom line: If I wanted to link to your blog, then I would have linked to it already.
5) This is Not a Blog. No Trackbacks Allowed.
While I might be using Wordpress to manage this site, I don't consider it a blog. The How-To Geek is here to help people with their computing experience. As such, I've disabled trackbacks, because they provide no value to the readers.
7) Ubuntu
I fully realize that Gnome runs on other versions of Linux other than Ubuntu. I also am aware of the existence of the Ubuntu Forums, although I rarely frequent them. If you continue to leave nasty comments, I will continue to delete them.
Just keep in mind that the How-To Geek is here to help the readers(including you), and you should have no problems with the comment system.
What's a trackback?
Albert:
A trackback is an automatic ping that happens when you write a blog post referencing another blog. Usually they show up in the comments area as comments linking to the article that linked to the current one you are reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackback
Hi Geek, I want to show my thanks for this great website - thank u for all the efforts and energy into this website. It has been a really great website and the reply was just so great and helpful. I would definitely recommend to my friends. If there is anything that I could help on to make this website a success, please let me know.
Once again, keep the good show running.
Ashley
I purchased my vistal ultimate Nov.2,2007 and have had nothing but trouble, trouble with it. First no sounds would play, shutting down etc then the hard drive crashed .,I had to get the DVD recover disk from HP to have the Vista Ultimate reinstalled on my HP Vista Ultimate-(by the retail store I bought it at with a 3 yr. warranty) it ran good for about 3-4 weeks,, now it's doing all kind of weird stuff. I thought it was just me doing something wrong, but it looks like a lot of people are having a lot of problems with the new Vista PC. Wish I had waited for another year and hopefully microsoft will get the bugs out. I can always rely on my faithful XP though. I've had some of the exact problems mentioned in the blogs I've been reading. and since I don't know much about how to fix the problems I'm having again, I'm thinking seriously about reformating my hard drive and reinstalling Vista Ultimate with the disk HP sent me. but may run into technical problems I don't know how to handle. But it may just be easier for me to go ahead and do the reformat and re-install. Maybe I'll learn something with taking that route instead of constantly trying by trial and error .If I mess up , guess I take my computer back to the dealer. I am impressed with the knowledge some of the people seem to have about ways to fix their computer. Bet you are all young people who started out with computers in kindergarden. I'm just getting started out now that I'm retired from work and have time to use a computer. Any advice If I should try the reformat and reinstall method?
Without your site, I would never be able to close a frozen program without restarting my computer (I'm talking about Task Manager Disabled in Windows Vista Premium). Though I do have one question. Why does my computer freeze when doing a long task, such as ripping a DVD with Handbrake while creating a document with Wordpad and listening to music on WMP? I lost a lot of work on that fateful day; I had done two pages before it froze. It seems that my computer can't handle more than three tasks at once. Do I need a larger CPU?