Re: Blogs and Comments

Here's a quick fix for comment spam that may work for Movable Type, if
you're not averse to making a small code change.

http://talk.org/archives/000252.html

Regards,

Steve Yost
QuickTopic and Quick Doc Review
http://www.quicktopic.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Lawson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 4:34 PM
Subject: RE: [NetLawyers] Blogs and Comments


> I'm in much the same situation as Jeff.  The comments feature is valuable,
> but the spammers have become so prolific that it's not worth it.  Deleting
> the spams seems to take me more than the 10-15 minutes a day he mentions.
> Perhaps partly because I'm operating multiple blogs, it's just too
> burdensome.
>
> Does TypePad have any built-in anti-comment spam features?  I had been
> thinking about moving some existing blogs over there anyway.
>
> Movable Type ver. 3.0 is an interim version, for developers.  The "mass
> consumption" ver. 3.0 is not available yet.
>
> Has anyone installed the third-party Movable Type plug-ins that Jeff
> mentions, and if so, with what results?
>
> Jerry Lawson
> http://www.netlawblog.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jjbeard-sxCt/[email protected] [mailto:jjbeard-sxCt/[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 1:08 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [NetLawyers] 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)
>
>
>
>
>
> -/-/-/-/-/
>
> There is a read/write Web page with resources that will be linked there
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>
> http://Network-Lawyers.org/PDFLinks
>
> -/-/-/-/-/
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>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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>
>
>
>
>



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