Hey bloggers, I need some help!

Hello fellow bloggers and assorted other people. I need your help.

See, I'm interested in starting another blog (not related to this one) and I know there are at least a few of you out there who read me and also run your own blogs.

I'm pretty familiar with the Blogger/Blogspot offerings at this point, and am wondering if there's something better out there I should be using. Blogger's okay, but it's pretty basic and uninspiring. Plus the "make a blog before you can comment" policy is desperately stupid, and in general the commenting system is pretty poor.

So do any of you other bloggers have any advice for me? I'm looking for something that allows a good deal of customization, has a good privacy policy (I love my anonymity!), gets listed reasonably well by search engines, and allows more fine-grained control over the commenting system. I'm no slouch with computers, so ease of use is less of a concern for me than power and the ability to make it work the way I want.

I've read various reviews here and there, but they tend to be by people who've just switched to a new system, and are likely to miss a lot of the frustrations and quirks that a longer-term user would know about.

I'm open to pretty much anything, from sticking to Blogger (or Blogger with a different commenting system) to Wordpress, Movable Type, etc., to just buying some server space and installing an open-source CMS on it. If anyone can provide input on the perks (and especially the drawbacks) of their preferred blogging system it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Some Commenting Changes

Okay, enough of this shit.

It seems that there's a subset of people who don't know how to post a comment on a blog without being a total dick.

Obviously this isn't just a problem here, as this post on the SNTDS blog indicates the admin there is having the same problem. That's not exactly surprising, since the majority of the offending comments seem to originate from one particular candidate's supporters. I'm sure you can guess which one.

Anyway, I'm instituting the requirement that anyone who wants to comment be registered. No more totally anonymous commenting. I do this reluctantly, because I do have some very good commenters who aren't registered (or at least don't sign in when they comment). I hope that those good commenters will register, because I hate to lose them.

I'm also leaving moderation on for the time being.

To respond to some of the more idiotic comments that most of you never got to see:

• I'm not any of the people I've been "accused" of being, nor am I affiliated with any other blog or anyone's campaign. This is a one-person show.
• I'd gladly let through comments in support of Ted if they actually attempted to support Ted based on the facts at hand and didn't just attack other people.
• I enjoy insane religious rants. Keep those coming!

As far as guidelines for those who do want to comment, they're pretty common-sense.

• Don't be an asshole.
• If you're a bigot, keep it to yourself.
• Don't threaten anybody.
• Don't attack private citizens.
• Stay at least mostly on-topic.

There are probably more but those are the first ones that come to mind. Just have some civility and you'll have no problems.

Thank you and good day.