Comments on: Comment Moderation, Etc

By: dedulya

dedulya — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:37:56 +0000

Not that it’s relevant right now, but just for the record Akismet does work with MT just fine (or, at least, just like it works with WP.

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By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:54:58 +0000

I have been reading SF since 1958, well over 4,000 titles. I am a normally a patient reader and wait for paperback editions to release.

In your case, I can’t wait and have to buy the hardbacks right away! I haven’t enjoyed story lines, fresh concepts and writing like yours for decades. Please keep it up! Squeeeeee!

By: Nick Stump

Nick Stump — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:00:20 +0000

must have been the mention of my wife’s voice being like a certain well-know tranquilizer. Oh well, it’s not like the world is gonna miss much not reading one of my comments. I had no idea this spam deal was such a problem. How you manage to keep Whatever running and produce all the great work you do is pretty amazing.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 02:23:34 +0000

Jeez … 2k a day?

I thought I had it rough with 300 – 400 daily garbage.

I used to use MT about one and a half years ago but couldn’t handle the amount of comments I had to moderate (I obviously didn’t understand how to use the MTBlacklist effectively) I’ve since moved to WordPress and run SpamKarma2 and rarely have to even touch the moderation queue.

By: MatGB

MatGB — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:34:56 +0000

Hej, as I just got here from the 'you have been modded' page, after I deliberately kept it to two links when a third was good. Second Zonker's recommendation of Aksimet, Movable Type plugin, and really think Bad Behaviour should get ported by someone, it's available for a number of BBs and MediaWiki as well now, so MT should get it at some point. It's soooo good. Admittedly, I was only getting 2000 spams per week not day, but still. Drawback is I have a dynamic IP. So I sometimes get blocked from my own blog. Nice.

By: Yaron

Yaron — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:05:09 +0000

Not that it’s relevant right now, but just for the record Akismet does work with MT just fine (or, at least, just like it works with WP. Whether it’s fine or not is a matter of some debate, but it usually gets very good reviews).

And I agree, switching a perfectly working software isn’t a good idea. As long as you’re happy with MT, you should stick with it. Though you could keep the old URIs working if you switch, if that’s a concern. It’s not entirely elegant, but it works.

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:10:44 +0000

I’m not going to move to WordPress because there’s no point in changing software (and entry URLs, etc) four years in. I like MT just fine. Also, I already catch about 99% of my spam before it hits. I just have more of it than most people, so what I do miss is more noticeable.

By: Zonker

Zonker — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 13:57:55 +0000

I don’t know if your blog system supports it, but I use WordPress with Akismet and the Bad Behavior plugins. They zap about 99.9% of the spam that hits my blog. I don’t get 2K a day, but I get a fair amount — and they have professional keys that are supposed to be able to handle that sort of traffic. You might look and see if Akismet is available for your system or consider moving to WordPress.

By: Yaron

Yaron — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 14:14:40 +0000

You’re writing from an IP address from which spam emanates. Use your anti-virus programs, people.

That one is, ahem, a bad one. Well, either a bad one, or a terrible one, depending on what list you check against.

There are common plug-ins that check against lists like the dsbl.org one. These are lists of IP addresses that generated, sometime in the past, email spam. Which is not related to comment spam. Different programs for either kind, different mechanisms, and doing one does not reflect on doing the other. Even if someone actually does use a computer that generates email spam, that does not really increase the likelihood of it generating comment spam (beyond the basis of already knowing this is possibly a compromised computer and may be less secure).

Second, these lists also keep dynamic IP addresses. Which renders the whole point moot. Someone uses his home computer to send spam, the address gets into a blacklist, and a few hours later the IP address is assigned to an entirely different person. A different person who might even not be a spammer.

I had several cases of comments blocked in 2006 because my dynamic IP address was used once in 2003, and another one once in 2005 (or was it 2004?) to send email spam.
Not cool.

CAPTCHAs work, but they’re annoying, problematical for many people, and (depending on the method used) problematical for some computers and browsers.
What tend to be less problematical are the purely textual ones, like “how much is 2+2?”, “What is John Scalzi’s last name?”, or “How is the closet dwarf plant to Earth called?”