The recent weeks of spam have been quite depressing and the sort of thing that does make you wonder how long blogs have before they turn into use.net. Yet there is nothing as thrilling as turning on your admin and each and every spam comment has been caught. It reminds me of one good argument for legalization of marijuana seed sales. Make a product worthless and the black market disappears. Similarly, take away the link and there is no spam. So if you have a spam filter put "URL", "http" and "a href" in it. If the rare comment-maker needs to post a link they can either just drag and drop without getting all HTML or they just get moderated.
So will spammers now tell me I can find Alba and Viagra at "wuh-wuh-wuh-dot-romanianspammers-dot-are-you" to get around this?
Comments
Sean Liddle - November 17, 2007 10:46 am
but why can I not enter my blog address into the web address portion above without it kicking out my post..
Sean Liddle - November 17, 2007 11:24 am
So how do others do it successfully..
Alan - November 17, 2007 11:28 am
You got me.
Sean Liddle - November 17, 2007 11:32 am
You're playing silly bugger with me, I know it.. :)
Gordo - November 17, 2007 12:02 pm
See, there's a problem, Al. Your spam filter has broken a function of your blog: users cannot list their web address and successfully post. Wordpress comes with Akismet (akismet dot com) functionality built in and it's been perfect: 44,973 caught since I started and not one false positive. It also does it without intrusiveness like captchas or removing features.
Alan - November 17, 2007 12:04 pm
That is not a function of my blog that I have the slightest interest in. I can unhide anything that is caught. That is way better.
Alan - November 17, 2007 12:13 pm
"Indonesian baits".
And see, I unhid Gordo's first comment above which was caught in the net though the power of the filter. It is not, surprise, all about you.
Sean Liddle - November 17, 2007 12:21 pm
"violations stank ha ha ha ha!"
I use askimet plus another called Spam Karma, neither of which require a Captcha style entry however I do note I have to set it to "complete beeotch" in terms of security otherwise it catches non-spam.. That would be on my blog, which I cannot link to here, just because..
Alan - November 17, 2007 12:30 pm
...I have no interest in that. You will also note that I have no interest in hand puppetry or anonymous posters. CM was asked to leave after a number of requests to treat this place as something than her own private and anonymous coffee clatch. She didn't have the manners even to respond.
Gordo - November 17, 2007 4:52 pm
And an attitude like that is what limits your appeal, Alan.
Alan - November 17, 2007 6:26 pm
As opposed to your variety of limitation of appeal? What a gobsmackingly weird thing of you to type into a computer, Gord.
Gordo - November 17, 2007 10:25 pm
What about rules #1, 2 & 3?
Alan - November 18, 2007 12:05 am
Good one.