Are my regular readers know we sincerely want to make sure every commentator has their say while keeping spam to a manageable level. Since we disabled Akismet in this blog, comment spam primarily from bots has increased to 600+ on some days.

We are testing alternative ways to keep the spam out while making sure our readers comments are all getting through. We need your feedback on whether the SI Captcha Anti-spam plugin currently installed in this blog is reducing comments or preventing real commentators from commenting.

It only takes a minute to check one box to complete our poll so we will know how you feel and can share this input with other bloggers.

Please leave a comment first to make sure you can still comment here.

If you have any additional feedback comment in this post or use the contact information to let us know. We DO want to hear from you.

Whether you believe tomorrow is the Online Holiday Shopping Deadline or today is the last free shipping day for online shopping, if you don’t want to pay hefty expedited shipping charges today is a great day to finish up your shopping.

Any business that counts on holiday sales would love to know how many are already done and whether they might still hope for more buyers. Here’s your chance to brag about being done already or tell us Bah, Humbug or let others suggest great deals you can still get. Just click one circle and you’re done.

Here’s to all the small family businesses and their extended family of employees and contractors who are working diligently to get all those last minute gifts shipped in time for Christmas.

Have you found the perfect gift and want to share what it is? Know of any great last minute deals? Need some gift ideas? We would love to know so leave a comment. Our commentator community will welcome you.

HOLIDAY SHOPPING POLLS:

• Consumer Reports Holiday Poll: Are you a Planner or a Procrastinator (Dec 17, 2009)
• PR NewsWire: Consumer Reports Poll: 40% of Adult Shoppers Have Yet to Begin Holiday Shopping (Dec 17, 2009)

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Perfect Gift May be the Most Practical One (bucks.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Free Shipping Day is December 17th This Year (shoppingblog.com)
• 7 Ways to Help Unemployed Friends and Family (bucks.blogs.nytimes.com)
• 3 Things You Need to Know about Free Shipping Day 2009 (blippitt.com)

I suspect that many get annoyed when links take them to Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, or elsewhere instead of directly to the content they expect. I created this poll to find out. If you have a strong opinion feel free to share it in the comments. If Twitter users know how their followers feel about this they are more likely to change how they Tweet.

NOTE: If you have already voted you can click on Vote and see results without selecting an option to see the current totals.

While you’re here why not check out some of the other posts? If you have a business or blog or would like to make money online you’re bound to find something interesting.