The Globe's meddlesome software staff have been unwilling to leave something alone that worked. As of sometime last week--starting Monday, November 26--comment input boxes simply vanished for all readers using Internet Explorer 7, 8 or 9. That is likely a majority of the readers who are paying the Globe over $200 a year each.

Reader BDCDottie has been missing in action here for over two months, so while you can try to "Talk to BDC" there may be no one on that end of the line. Meanwhile BDCDottie has been active with comments on news article and opinions and has obviously shown up as an insider, with the ability to remove comments made on the bostonglobe.com site.

No significant fixes to comment bugs and missing functions since the fall wrenching. From some viewpoints it might be a blessing, since each and every intervention by Globe software staff this year has turned into a cartoon of Alladin's lamp: new bugs for old!

I had to register 4 times today just to get on the forums.

Extremely annoying.

AppDev: The inability to comment while using IE is a known issue that's on dev's list of fixes. They are rewriting the Javascript for article comments to fix a few other issues right now, and will tackle the IE issue soon.

In response to BDCDottie's comment:

Why are multiple accounts/screen names allowed, Dottie? My understanding was BDC took back the forums so they would have more control over them and the elimination of trolls. Multiple screen names by one poster has been an issue for years on the red sox front burner forum, had up to two dozen at once, which were used to deceive other posters.

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