Comment Spam

by La Shawn on September 6, 2004

in Lunacy

Because of an increasing amount of comment spam, I’ll be moderating comments that include links. I’d recently adjusted my settings to hold comments with 3 or more because, as many of you know, spam contains multiple links.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to adjust the settings to hold comments containing any links for my approval. As a result, I’ll probably have to disallow linking altogether. Sorry. If you’d like to link to a site, be aware that your comment will not appear right away because I have to approve it. Feel free to post otherwise. Thanks!

{ 10 comments }

Vinny 09.06.04 at 10:14 pm

It really does suck that it’s come to this; but I think I may do the same thing.

Awesome site, btw ;-)

Rand 09.07.04 at 12:00 am

Yes, great site. I’ll be keeping an eye…

God bless,

Jeffery Blanco 09.07.04 at 12:51 am

That’s a shame, what’s the point of comment spam?

Does anybody ever really click on the spam that says something about casinos, viagra, quitting your job, loan, or that girl who is interested in you?

So much work for so little results? Why?

Mike 09.07.04 at 12:30 pm

Ditto Vinny’s comment.

My site went down last week due to spam. Up and running again, but with some filters. I don’t want to shut down comments altogether, or require registration. But, as you’ve said, it may eventually come to that.

Elizabeth B 09.07.04 at 12:35 pm

This is sad, but a common problem. LGF seems to have done well with registration, but it’s sad when it has to come to things like that.

Good luck with whatever you need to do to solve this problem.

Eric 09.07.04 at 5:54 pm

La Shawn, has anyone created for WordPress the kind of spam-blocking plug-in like MT-Blacklist for Movable Type blogs?

I had just about reached the point of closing off comments completely on my blog when I learned about MT-Blacklist, and since installing it, comment spam has been reduced by more than 90%, and all without requiring user-unfriendly tactics like registration or banning of HTML in comments. Surely someone has done something similar for WordPress.

If things get bad enough, it might be worth the pain to switch to MT, although I hesitate to introduce religion into this discussion! ;-)

La Shawn 09.07.04 at 6:11 pm

There’s probably a plug-in for that, Eric. I’d have to find out what it is. Actually, I may disallow links anyway because I’m going for strict XHTML compliance. With everyone using different HTML styles, XHTML wouldn’t validate.

Doc Rampage 09.07.04 at 7:55 pm

Why don’t you put a notice on your comment page:

Noncommercial posts are free. Commercial speech is $1000/hour of exposure. You must pre-pay for commercials, otherwise your post will be deleted and you will be charged full price for each hour or faction of an hour it was up, plus a $1000 collection fee.

Then hire a lawyer to go after them for 50%.

Aaron's Rantblog 09.07.04 at 11:10 pm

I like Doc’s idea, but most of my spam comes from German spammers. No way to collect.

Google up “spamming nazis” and you’ll see my comments.

Eric 09.07.04 at 11:22 pm

Just out of curiosity…why is it important to you to go “for strict XHTML compliance”?

Seems like an unusual position for a blogger. Not saying that it’s wrong or bad, but given that “standards” are really nothing more than guidelines, for the most part (I realize there are exceptions), it strikes me as a bit funny to let them dictate your content.

But, you don’t strike me as being someone who does anything without a good reason, so what am I missing?

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