Comment and spam problems
July 27th, 2004 | Published in Blogs | 21 Comments
The comments are back. I must thank Jag, who noticed there was an extra ‘e’ that had got blacklisted in line 602! That was what was causing problems with leaving comments on the blog.
Though I am sorely tempted to remove the comments box, I feel it’s an integral part of the blog and am not really keen to take that extreme step yet. The comments spam seems to be snowballing everyday. Jay Allen’s list is great and he updates it almost everyday. But it’s really becoming quite a pain updating the list and de-spamming the blog everyday.
(UPDATE: Madhu’s been working hard to make my blog spam free and I’m hoping that whatever he’s done to it, works! Thanks Madhu, I do owe you a dinner now :)












July 28th, 2004 at 12:17 am (#)
SPAM!!!, no one’s gifted to be less SPAMMED.
July 28th, 2004 at 3:14 am (#)
I guess it’s time to move on from Movabletype to WordPress (my take of-course). There’s a plugin available for WordPress where it shuts-off comments after a specified number of days that the author chooses. There are other goodies like password protect certain posts (or even the entire blog); get users to register for commenting (unlike Typepad which is a centralized service)and receive future comments on a given post by email. This list goes on and on.
July 28th, 2004 at 10:26 am (#)
Comment spam is a headache, I agree. It was never an issue with blogger, but its one hell of a problem when people move to MT, Typepad, etc.
I second Chetan’s opinion about WordPress. It has a handy plugin for blocking blacklisted commenters. Well, the blacklist itself is taken from Jay Allen’s list, but what makes WordPress better is the intuitive plugin interface it uses. Makes it easy to use.
To digress… I’m moving my blog from blogger to WordPress. So I shall soon contact you to modify my blog info on the indianbloggers list! :-)
July 28th, 2004 at 1:10 pm (#)
hey there! interesting blog. nice colors, great pic. very pretty actually. and hehe… even more interesting posts. too bad ur in Bangalore, or i could have offered to teach u some French (the lec u missed). Welcome to my Blogroll!
July 28th, 2004 at 1:14 pm (#)
I installed this on my movable type blog and the comment spam dried up instantly: http://www.johnwehr.com/spamwait
It might be worth having a look at.
July 28th, 2004 at 10:06 pm (#)
Huh i never faced that problem… :( but I hope this thing clears off soon !!
July 29th, 2004 at 6:52 am (#)
Nice blog here, do check out mine.
July 29th, 2004 at 8:19 am (#)
I find it a bit funny how so many wordpress users are so quick to tell people that the best thing for them to do is to move away from MT and to WP. Funny that…
“There’s a plugin available for WordPress where it shuts-off comments after a specified number of days that the author chooses.”
Yes, it’s called WP-Blacklist. Wonder where they came up with that. Anyhow, the next version of MT-Blacklist does this and far far more. Of course, I’m sure that WP-Blacklist will add the new functionality as well (I encourage it even).
Hold on for a bit and you’ll see what I’m talking about…
July 30th, 2004 at 1:15 am (#)
How about returning to yaccs temporarily? But not sure if MT-YACCS interfacing is possible..
July 30th, 2004 at 6:27 am (#)
Mr Allen, I commend your work and also an admirer of the blacklist. I know that your plugin is available for both platforms-that makes it even playfield.
What you’re probably not aware of is this (and not the WP-Blacklist). If you think this is your implementation, then I rest my case. Also, I’m talking about existing MT users (that use 2.6x version; not what 6A is producing now as a paid version). To add spice to the discussion, I heard no comments about the built-in Mass edit functions in WP. Is that your derivative too?
July 31st, 2004 at 7:40 pm (#)
Testing new industrial strength comment spam protection measure. If this gets posted, the install was successful!
July 31st, 2004 at 7:43 pm (#)
Continuing tests. Next test, I will simulate a spambot and see whether it gets blocked.
July 31st, 2004 at 7:54 pm (#)
OK, so “proper” comments are going through, but ones without the “key” are not. Yay!
July 31st, 2004 at 7:55 pm (#)
This blog has now been protected against automated spambots. Anyone wanting to comment-spam here will have to do it manually, which few will.
- Your friendly neighbourhood MadMan
July 31st, 2004 at 9:41 pm (#)
I have decided to make a directory of bloggers from Kolkata. Can u help?
I have a site at http://www.sdey.org
August 3rd, 2004 at 3:55 pm (#)
For others who are interested, I’ve written a short list of options available to you to prevent comment spam. It’s on my blog. Check it out.
August 12th, 2004 at 7:19 am (#)
Chetan, I’m not exactly sure what you’re getting at. WP-Blacklist has from the very beginning been touted as a derivative of (and relied upon) MT-Blacklist. The next version due out extremely soon does what I consider to be a large step better than auto-closing comments: It auto-moderates comments on old entries (duration is configurable). This leaves your entire archive of content open for comments like the day you posted it, but stops the spam cold. For the record, MTCloseComments has been around longer than (or at least almost as long as) MT-Blacklist. It’s not exactly a new or Wordpress-only feature.
Anyway, the funny thing here is that Matt M. is a friend and I respect both his work and the work of the Wordpress community. It’s a shame that some in that community feel the need to bash MT through factually erroneous and misleading comparisons instead of all realizing what a small boat we are sailing in in the blogging world.
I have nothing bad to say about WP, but I know what MT 3.1 and MTB 2.0 will do and your disseminating dated information.
August 13th, 2004 at 10:06 pm (#)
Jay: What I’m getting at is better expressed by Matt M. himself.
Anita: I’m sorry to be commenting here again for clarification. What started as a personal opinion has snow-balled to this. My apologies. It was not my intention to offend anyone here. All I meant was that people can try for themselves the alternatives to see the results for themselves. Nobody’s stopping anyone to use what they like as long as they’re happy with what they’re using.
I also stand by what I said earlier: WordPress by it’s inherent ability has been better at stopping spam (without using WP-Blacklist, in the first place). Anyone disagreeing with me are free to try for themselves and see the results.
December 24th, 2004 at 5:28 pm (#)
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February 22nd, 2006 at 8:14 am (#)
Terrific Blog you have. Peace Out.
TreeFrog
March 6th, 2006 at 12:20 pm (#)
Kewl blog you got goin on up here.
Peace, JiggyWittit