As the comment form states:

Your e-mail address is never displayed, so provide a real one.

Similarly, my Terms of Use and Privacy Policy both make clear information submitted to this site is protected and not shared except under very special circumstances (e.g., legal process).

The reason I ask for real e-mail addresses is simple and twofold.

First: They are unique.  Because the site tracks these as part of the authorization to comment without moderation, it’s critically important to ensure unique addresses are used.  That provides a key (along with a name, tracked and used separately) that can ensure a user is provided automatic comment posting rather than shunting feedback into the moderation queue.

Second: They are used internally for comment notifications if you do not turn that service off.

Obviously the first point is most important.

I mention all of this because two things have happened that warrant feedback from me.

Any comment I find to be submitted with an invalid address gets deleted.  When that happens, it forever prohibits that address from being used.  It also tells me to specifically filter the submitter name so that it goes into moderation every time it’s used.

Hey, it’s my site and I run it that way for important reasons.  If you don’t want to use a real address, don’t try to comment.

Another thing that has happened is that a comment is submitted with an obviously fake address (e.g., no@spam.com).  Those comments never make it through moderation; I delete them immediately.  Asking you to use a real address is not too much for granting you the ability to put your words on my site.  Your failure to respect my rules means you have no right to comment.  And this troubles me, for several comments have been left using this trick that deserved to be published.  They were thought-provoking, insightful, considerate, or raised aspects of the discussion I feel others would appreciate.

But none of that matters.  If you don’t want to follow a simple rule about using a valid e-mail address, you’ve indicated from the start that you either can’t read or have so little respect for me that you’d try to wiggle around such an inconsequential requirement.

That means what you have to say is irrelevant.

So I’m reiterating that you must use a real e-mail address in order to comment.  Failure to do so and use of intentionally incorrect addresses both will result in the comment being deleted.

But I’ll go even further by letting the comment through and deleting your original content, replacing it with some snide remark noting that you couldn’t do something as simple as use a real address.

Again, it’s my site.  If you’re so paranoid that you don’t want to use a real one, then you don’t deserve to be on the net and certainly shouldn’t be trying to leave comments.

Still, I’m saddened by some of the losses.  Had the persons used real addresses, they would have added something worthwhile to several posts and discussions.  Sad…