For the moment I have closed comments as the default, although I will probably open the most recent ones manually. In the past 4 days I’ve been comment spammed to the tune of 16,000 comments. And that’s with half of the posts already being closed!
Once we get my computers up and running at home I’ll install the MT plug-in to deal with comment spamming. But for now, please be patient with the lack of public communication alternatives here.