Re: Blogs and Comments

Well, I for one, can commiserate with Mr. Drum re: maintaining a blog with open
comments.  Comment spam is a very serious and time-consuming problem for me --
mostly because I haven't had the time to devote to implementing one of the
third-party Movable Type plugins for closing open comments.

I can corroborate his relative threshold of 10-20K readers, at least as measured
by "visits" per month or perhaps "pages served" per month in my site's
Webalizer log reports.  Once my blog crossed that threshold some months ago, I
started getting comment spam.  Now that it is well over that threshold, I'm
deluged with them.  In just a single day last week, my blog got hit by over 75
spam comments.  Somewhat fortunately, many of them were in multiples of 12
comments per post (obviously to manipulate the search engines' "link voting"
logic), so it was easier to delete them in groups, but it was nasty.  It's sad
to say that it's currently easier for me to find the 10-15 mins a day to delete
them than it is to find larger chunks of time to devote to implementing the
solution (there are several Movable Type plugins which take somewhat different
approaches), although cumulatively I know I'll save much more time in short
order by doing the latter, so it'll probably end up as a weekend project when
the weather isn't so nice.

Many bloggers suffering from comment spam have noticed that the overwhelming
majority of posts getting spammed are ones that have been out there 30 days or
more.  Conversely, the posts getting valid comments from interested readers are
usually made in the first week (or two at most) after posting.  So one of the
most effective solutions is to have an automated way to close all comments
after X number of days of posting.

Like others, I have thought about eliminating the comment feature, but it has
value both to myself and my blog's readers.  Sometimes, someone will point us
to an alternative, new, or better solution/product that we wouldn't have found
on our own.  Having comments open on my "great RSS vs. Atom debate" posts
earlier this year allowed influential people like Dave Winer to add his
thoughts.  This in turn generated very spirited discussion and debate by other
influential posters and my blog traffic and readership spiked as a direct
result.  Nice win-win.

And naturally, on the downside, that's also about the same time I got nailed and
continue to get nailed by the comment spam.  So it's really in my corner to
automate closing the old comments, which I know is doable with some extra time
investment for my version of Movable Type.  I'm the one leaving the comment
door open right now, because my time has been preoccupied by my recent career
advancement and relocation.

But I thought you might appreciate the perspective of someone a bit closer to
home.

Jeff Beard
Legal Services IT Manager
Caterpillar Inc.
100 NE Adams Street
Peoria, IL 61629-6490
(309) 675-4889 (Phone)
(309) 675-1236 (Fax)
jjbeard-2nPbLGRuc/[email protected]
www.lawtechguru.com (Blog)

Quoting Stuart Levine <[email protected]>:

> Kevin Drum, the blogger for the Washington Monthly, had a posting
> on the problems associated with having comments on weblogs.  His
> posting can be found here:
>
> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004
> 254.php
>
> or here:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2q6uv
>
> He pointed out the growing number of larger circulation blogs that
> were dropping their comment features and said, in pertinent part,
> that once a blog gets a sufficient readership it's impossible to
> continue the comment feature.
>
> Of course, his idea of sufficient readership is 10-20,000, a number
> that few if any legal blogs are likely to hit.
>
> In any event, the issue highlights the fact that blogs are becoming
> "mainstream" as more and more people rely upon them for political,
> social, and other information.  (Actually, I'm becoming a fan of food
> blogs.  This should come as no surprise to any of you who have
> actually seen me and watched me inflict damage with a knife and
> fork.)
> ********************************************
> Stuart Levine
> Fisher & Winner, LLP
> 315 North Charles Street
> Baltimore, Maryland 21201
> Telephone:             410.385.2000
> Telecopier:              443.927.7075
> Cellphone:               410.802.5817
> Weblog:  http://taxbiz.blogspot.com
> http://www.taxation-business.com
> [email protected]
> *********************************************
>
>
>
>
>
> -/-/-/-/-/
>
> There is a read/write Web page with resources that will be linked there and
> used during the Seminar on PDFs for lawyers and legal applications:
>
> http://Network-Lawyers.org/PDFLinks
>
> -/-/-/-/-/
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>





------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/dpFolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

-/-/-/-/-/

There is a read/write Web page with resources that will be linked there and used during the Seminar on PDFs for lawyers and legal applications:

http://Network-Lawyers.org/PDFLinks

-/-/-/-/-/


 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Network-Lawyers/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    Network-Lawyers-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/