A Side Order Of Spam
It’s not just for others anymoreby j. brotherlove
I’ve been pretty lazy about spam protection on thebrotherlove.com. When I get a few invalid comments on old posts, I just delete them and carry on. Other than that, I haven’t had a lot of problems with on a large scale and haven’t been in a rush to implement any changes to the commenting procedure; until now.
Last night, for the first time, I got hit pretty hard. Ironically, I’d just read Six Apart’s Guide to Comment Spam and installed Chad Everett’s MT-Moderate plugin. Essentially, it requires comment approval on archived posts older than a specified number of days. As a result, those spam comments never made it on the site. But the experience did hit home for me. I’d hate to close up shop and relocate, like Jason.
I see why TypeKey is a popular solution and how (presumable) it does a good job of curtailing attacks. But I’m still conflicted about requiring people to “sign in” to post a comment. I may have to just get over that. Right now, I’m happy with Chad’s solution versus automatically closing commenting on archives. I like when people read and interact on older posts. My review of Crazy As Hell is a recent example - I wrote it over two year’s ago. That’s one reason I don’t highlight the date I write a post; to discourage blog ageism. Heh.
As I plan for my redesign in the coming months (I feel you shake with anticipation), I will be adding additional protections against spammers. I’ll have to try them out and see what I like. There are quite a few options (throttling, CAPTCHAs, and various, other plugins); each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
It sucks to have to deal with this issue, at all. But such is the price of freedom.
As I plan for my redesign in the coming months (I feel you shake with anticipation)…
Are you gonna take as long as the last time?
you know, [knock on cyber wood] i’ve not had a bit of spam since re-installing comments last year. why i don’t know. maybe it has something to do with blogger or haloscan [the comment service i use] but not one spam comment has popped up. let’s hope it stays that way.
{@ Bernie} Oh, here you go…
I’ll be doing some major restructuring/redesigning but I’ll try to work that all out in the background so I don’t inconvenience you, okay?
karsh suggests using word press instead of MT. but since donald redid my comments and i have the blacklist plugin, and the other plugin that makes it so i have to approve non typekey posters, although i see the spam there in the MT app - if i don’t want to deal with it i don’t have to, b/c it’s not making it’s way to my site.
i know that most MT folks i’ve talked to, close older posts, but i’m like you, i like for the interaction to continue.
I’m not blaming MT. WordPress gets spam. This is an issue for every major CRM system.
I have tried other blog systems and have not been overly impressed. It’s just switching one devil for another as far as I can see.
Besides, the design community (both, aesthetic and programmatic) thrive in MT. Have you seen most of the blog designs/content in WordPress, ExpressionEngine, etc? Blecch! I’m sure a lot more can be done with those solutions. But if the people who are already using them aren’t inspired, I doubt if I would be either.
The only real spam advantage that I’ve found with WordPress is the built in blacklist. I find that I can’t get the MT-Blacklist plugin to behave just how I want it to so that frustrates me.
I completely agree with you though about the lack of inspiration with ExpressionEngine and WordPress. I’ve tried both and really was uninspired by both. They are good tools and they are perfect for some but they just don’t do it for me.