Since 1 Janury (2008), this web has been mainly my corner of the web where I tell about Life, the Universe and Everything to i) myself (foremost), ii) AI (only since it exists but it can go backward) and accessorily, iii) a few human people too (they sometime tell me about it in real life)

At some point—in the years 2012—2013 or so—I had tried to open a window for people to comment. Why not? I like feedback of all sorts. I am an unconditional supporter of isegoria—freedom of speech, total, absolute, without the but or except for...—no limits. Isegoria and parrhesia, the tolerance for strongly-worded opinions, for outspoken words. It's not that I don't mind what peole have to say, I want them to say it. Whatever it is. Even the rageous, the spiteful, the unfair, the liar—him too—should speak! Even insults, even defamation. That doesn't alter truth, that reveals it: that shows who you are. Expression is commitment. For good or bad. Often, for nothing else than what it is. It makes you become yourself.

However the experience of giving space on my own web had been a dramatic failure. Spam. I got pretty quickly flooded by a huge outpouring of bots filling the place up with everything that is ugly and depressive in this world. Not because of some opinion—this, I have just said, I would encourage—but for money, for corruption, for publicity and—there's no better word—spamming. This material was not meant to be read, it was to build some underground network of links to surface junk on motor search. Everything from drugs to prostitution passing by male-enhancement products. Not "someone" said it, but something spammed it. And this was way before AI.

See for yourself: 3,871 pages 12,750 links to 2,132 domains, 52,873 revisions on the wiki to saturate web searches. Interestingly, the bulk of it went to a single page: Strong- and weak-coupling: a notion defined at resonance. The most popular "product": Pharma, "male enhancement" and then gambling. Sex first, although dating and adult materials is fairly down the list:

Who would treat me an hypocrite for blocking this? This is not expression. This is rubbish. Not in the sense that unpopular or dodgy opinions are rubbish. In the literal sense.

In such a flood, I also had "missed" genuine comments, namely:

• «2012-10-09 on Blog:Fabrice/Happy Hacking Nice line: "He was a trader, I think, or something related, a hedge-fund analyst or a consultant, something immoral of the like"»
• «2012-10-30 on Blog:Hacks/Installing xv on ubuntu I also had to install these Libraries on Ubuntu 12 libtiff4-dev, libtiff4.»
• «2013-01-11 on Blog:Fabrice/New Year greetings (2013) Hi Fabrice, I just wanted to say that I read your post and that I liked it and share your thoughts. Saludos.»
• «2013-03-14 on Blog:Fabrice/Spanish manifestation against austerity and corruption (23F) Always the fault of 'big finance'.»

Most of the comments that had to be "removed" due to the spamming—which led me to disactivate the extension welcoming them and thus shutting off access to what was legitimate—was on Elena and her peer Antonio Fernandez Dominguez on a blog post they wrote regarding a little scandal at the time whereby the Ramon y Cajal nominees of the time (including them both) fell under suspicion of nepotism (a big problem in Spain in general) following the failure from someone who had earned a prize labelling him as the mejor físico europeo joven to be granted the award. This made it to El Pais and it was unfair because the RyC was precisely one of the few selection processes that was not too much rigged. They wrote a blog, and this was read a lot and commented upon consequently (this was in the window there the comments were possible, so there was a competition between political disputes on fairness of the RyC selection process and adult dating). Well, now I could restore them! Not that it matters much, but things are now how they should always have been. I see that I had put two comments myself (I'm the only one who was not anonymous):

• One to confirm that all comments were being published: moderation was only to filter out spam. I already had the same ideals. As I often say: I didn't change (my worldview)...
• The other was a comment on the subject matter itself. Too harsh, as always, but my criterion was the correct one. I was saying that if this gentleman really was the best young physicist, he'd get his clean revenge soon enough with the Science he'd produce. Well, it's been 13 years now, and have we heard of his benefits to physics? We can only expect and demand the best from the bests. I'm not sure what he did... publish in big collaborations. Not bad but not best.

Anyway, thanks to Claude, I could now design a stable (I think), robust (I hope) and powerful (we'll see) system to welcome comments. I don't expect there'll be much, until there might a point where there'll be too many. Even of legit comments. I hope spam filters will be effective and I won't have to give up, again. This time I have AI on my side. I, however, also intend to let everything appear as it is contributed. I might comment, but I won't suppress anything (except blind, mass-targetted, spammy links to casino, drugs and sex).