Comment spam: a solution (I hope)

As I mentioned before, while on vacation, this blog been deluged with comment spam. It's mainly hit the new posts (often within a couple of hours of posting), but it's showing up in older posts as well.

As a temporary measure until I manage to get off my duff and switch to a different blogging platform, I've turned on Word Verification on Blogger, something I only just noticed today. Word Verfication means you will have to recognize and type a word before you post your comment. Sorry for the inconvenience of the added step to post a comment, but I got tired of wasting my precious vacation Internet access time deleting comment spams. Blame the comment spammers, who, like e-mail spammers, are the utter scum of the Internet.

We'll see how it works.

Comments

  1. Fabulous! I didn't realize that Blogger had added this feature -- because my blogs aren't here anymore.

    A couple other blogs I frequent have reported awful comment-spam issues also; I'll pass it on.

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  2. Yup, I added the Verification Word a few days ago for the same reason. So far it is working fine.

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  3. The only problem with Verification Word features is that they make it impossible for users of software screen readers, i.e., the visually impaired, to make comments. I don't know if that's enough of your audience to make a difference, but they can't write in to complain, anymore.

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  4. Hmmm. I hadn't thought of that. Unfortunately, the volume of comment spam was continuing to increase, leaving me little choice. I would hope that any visually impaired would be willing to e-mail me if they have comments.

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  5. A while ago I had the same problem, and I added a comment password on my site. Haven't had a problem since. The password is right there in plain text on the comment page, so it poses no obstacle to the visually impaired etc., but the bots don't know how to deal with it and won't unless someone codes a bot specifically to retrieve the password...in which case I'll move it. There's strength in diversity; the more people use a given approach, the more incentive there is for bot writers to write code for it. There are CAPTCHA-breakers out there that include Blogger verification words in their test suite, and it's only a matter of (not much) time before that stops working.

    Of course, implementing diverse approaches is easier when you have access to the code (as, in my case, with WordPress). Those who use services such as Blogger have no choice but to pressure those services into providing more or better options.

    Platypus

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  6. Orac,

    Did you turn off comments on your "avoiding scientific delusion" post so that Anon could not answer your question??

    If so, thanks! It saves Anon the time bothering to answer silly questions.

    Anon

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