Blog Comment Spammers Way Out of Control
In the past seven days, MT Blacklist (a program that stops blog comment spam for Movable Type blogs) has stopped no fewer than 1,400 blog comment spams from getting on my site–and another 100 got through the protection and had to be removed manually. That’s over 200 spams a day. This represents a rather significant surge in spam volume over previous levels.
I hate to do this, but next chance I get, I’m installing some sort of registration system–provided that they work. Anyone know if they do, or which system is best? I’d really like to stay with MT. I presume MT v. 3.0 would allow me to do that. Any advice would be appreciated.
It is pitiful to go around the web and look at blogs that are not cleaned out by their owners–their comment areas are a cesspool of spam. These people should just shut down comments altogether. They’re just making it worse for the rest of us.
I’m also getting a lot of referral spam, and they’ve evolved–IP Deny no longer blocks them out.
Spammers are the cockroaches of cyberspace. I don’t think anyone with a blog would disagree with that. Unless the blog is run by a spammer, of course. And even then…
Luis, check out TypeKey developed by Six Apart http://www.typekey.com/
Described as,
“TypeKey is a free, open system providing a central identity that anyone can use to log in and post comments on blogs and other web sites.”
Mark:
How similar is it to MT? Does it have fewer features or more? Can it take an MT transfer of blog data, and transfer back to MT?
And how about the comment registration system? Does it work, or have spammers found ways in?
Thanks!
No Typekey isn’t a seperate content management system, it works with MT to provide an authentication system for comments http://www.typekey.com/faq/ . I don’t use it so I can’t give you any technical details but for your current situation it’s worth checking out.
As far as I can see, though, it appears built-in to MT 3.0. From the TypeKey web site, there is only a main page and an FAQ, and no download option. Which means I’ll have to do the whole conversion to 3.0… ah well, may as well do it now than later. Gotta reserve this weekend, though–I’ll want to duplicate the blog and do a test upgrade to that before risking the whole tamale.