The Chatterbox

Comments, Trackbacks, etc

Just a bit of housekeeping with this post.

I have (at least temporarily) reactivated Comments and Trackbacks in the blog. You can thank or blame Craig for this, depending upon your view on the matter. ;-)

As I explain previously these were disabled because of the amount of spam the blog seemed to attract, coupled with the fact that I don't have 2 or 3 hours per day to moderate this domain. Which is what it was requiring.

I'm not going to lay out everything I'm doing in this little test, but here are a couple of things real people posting comments will want to do or not do as the case may be.

1. You'll see a new field on the comments form that asks you what my first name is. Think of this as a dumb CAPTCHA, since I really don't want to have to enabled a full CAPTCHA because I know there are are some sight-impaired users out there who read my blog. Simply input my first name (randy or Randy, it's case insensitive) and you'll go on through.

2. Since most spammers are trying to get their URLs into other people's blogs, I've set up the system I'm testing to automatically block any comment or trackback that mentions more than 2 URLs. As a link or non-linked text. I may up this later, but for testing purposes I want to start out strict. So when you're posting make sure you do not include more than 2 url addresses anywhere in the post. This goes for both the URL and Comments fields combined. Got it? No more than 2 urls anywhere.

Also know that during testing I'll still be manually moderating comments and trackbacks. This has to be done to make sure the spammers can't get through the various filters I have set up. So don't expect your comments to show up immediately. Though I certain appreciate comments and feedback, I'll get to 'em when I get to 'em. This site simply isn't my main focus. My sites that make me a living are.

Also, don't expect to see any error message if your comment gets caught up in the filters. To give a detailed error message would give the spammers a leg up in reverse engineering the several layers of checks I'm performing. So it's going to look like everything went through, even though it may have gotten headed off by the spam checking system.

If I can get it working so that it catches a majority of the spam (by majority I want 99% with as few false positives as possible) I'll open it up more so that comments are immediately visible. In fact, I may tell you exactly what Movable Type plug-ins and other methods I'm using to help keep me sane so that you can use them on your own MT blog.

You can ping this entry by using http://www.randycullom.com/chatterbox/mt-tb.cgi/34 .

Hey Randy,

So nice I could be of assistance to you as your scape goat!!

I make a simple comment about the comments and now it's all my fault, typical!

I hope it was worth the hassle and you don't get to many spammers, though I think your dumb CAPTCHA is gonna be beat real quick!

Well , here's wishing you a happy and prosperous new year and look forward to your continued blogging in 2008.

Regards,

Craig.

ROFL

Credit or blame where it's due Craig, that's my theory.

Oddly enough, the dumb CAPTCHA seems to be working like a treat! This morning was the first time I've checked back on comments in awhile (been busy!) and not a single spam comment in sight.

Go figure. Bots and their makers really are dumb I guess. (knock wood)