A Word about Links and my Blog Policies

Hi, I'm just dropping in for a quick administrative message. I had to delete a comment from a nice reader earlier today, who was telling me about a great idea for a treasure hunt for young kids. She included a hot link in her comment to a website with which I was unfamiliar. Unfortunately, I've had a problem with people leaving bad or dubious links in my comments recently, and I've decided to ban hot-linking in the comments for the time being. I am terribly sorry about this. 99% of the comments I receive are wonderful, legitimate messages, including the ones with links, and I love to hear from readers (I sometimes feel that I'm writing into a void - it's ALWAYS nice to receive comments. I used to be a chronic lurker, but now that I know how important they are to bloggers, I'm afraid I tend to blabber on too much on other people's blogs). However, the 1% bothers me, and I would hate for anyone else to have problems with their computer because they clicked on a bad link in my blog.

I hope you will all understand. To Jennifer, who left the comment earlier today, please accept my apologies. I know that if I left a sincere comment on someone else's blog and found that they summarily deleted it, I would feel hurt. I really do appreciate your comment, and I love your clever idea for a children's game. I used to do treasure hunts with my father all of the time when I was a kid, and I loved them.

Thanks so much. I hope everyone is having a great weekend.