I passed my midterm exam in Immunology today So in order to reward myself, I took an hour break from studying to introduce some new features for the website:

• [1] Threaded comments are now back Should keep things more organized around here… A couple of things to note:

  If you are replying to a comment someone else made, (i.e. saying something directly related to what they said) use the "Reply to this Comment" link next to the comment which you wish to reply to, and then fill out the comment form as normal.

  If you are making a new comment that has nothing to do with what anyone else has said, (or not said) just fill out the comment form as normal.

  An example is [2] here.

  I have tested this feature with the "Subscribe to Comments" utility, and everything is working fine for me. If you do not get emails when new comments are posted on posts that you have subscribed to, please [3] let me know.

• "No Follow" removed from commenter's URL's/URI's - In an effort to reduce spammers using blogs as a way to increase their [4] PageRank, and therefore position in search engine listings, Google has introduced the "no follow" tag, which was included in Wordpress 1.5 by default. When it sees this tag on internet links, Google basically ignores the link, so the hope was that if there was no incentive to spamming weblogs, spammers would stop. Spammers still keep sending emails, even though most people have filters that delete the spam without users ever seeing it, so color me skeptical about this initiative's successes. And even if Google doesn't see it, both you (the reader) and I have to look at it, so this is a less than optimal solution.

  I use a rather aggressive set of tools on this site, so I believe around 1 comment spam has gotten through all the filters in the last month, and even that was deleted within a few hours (likely before Google got to it.) Therefore, I see no need for the "no follow" tag on my site, so I have installed a plug-in that disables it. I value the people that take the time to comment on my blog, and I want to make sure Google feels the same way

  P.S. I know the spam filters running on this blog can be aggressive, but I have not yet heard of them deleting a legitimate comment from a legitimate user. If this has happened to you, please [3] let me know.

  Note to AOL users: One of the filters checks to see if the IP address posting the comment is the same one that requested the comment form. Since the "AOL Browser" uses proxies, these IP addresses are usually different, and the comment fails the filter check. For this reason, AOL users using the "AOL Browser" will see "Comments are closed," and will not be able to comment. If you find yourself in this situation, 1) [6] Get a better browser, and 2) Get a better ISP. (Basically anything other than AOL.)