October 5th, 2005 at 05:25am Posted by Bill
Comment spam blows. I’ve seen it becoming more and more common on many blogs that I read daily, and it was also slowly increasing in numbers on this site. Back when I was using Blogger to manage this site, there wasn’t much that I could do other than simply delete the offending comments from the post. I understand that Blogger now has some sort of comment spam detecting system, though it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Either most people aren’t aware of it, or maybe they have to manually enable it somehow, or maybe it just doesn’t work very well.
Since I converted my blog to Wordpress, I have only occasionally had to deal with comment spam. Recently, though, it has increased to the point that is almost unbearable. Wordpress has some basic comment spam detecting features built-in. I recently configured my blog to hold for moderation any comments that contained any links at all. The comments are first delivered to my email address, then I can approve them or delete them. There were several significant problems with this method. One, while I was on vacation recently, there were several legitimate (and very helpful, thanks RM!) comments that were held and didn’t get posted for a few weeks. I can imagine that the comment writers weren’t sure why their comment didn’t immediately show up.
The bigger problem with this system is that many spam comments didn’t actually have a link in the body of the message itself, so they were still posted without being held for approval.
So I had a choice. I could configure my blog to allow comments only from people after they register as a user, but I didn’t want to force people to do that. I know that when I want to leave a simple comment about something on a blog I’ve stumbled upon, if I’m forced to register with the site first, I’ll usually just click away, keeping my comment to myself.
I could moderate each and every comment. This means that I would have to approve every single comment that someone leaves, filtering out all the garbage comments left by spambots. I don’t get a huge number of legitimate comments, but I’ve been getting literally 35+ spam comments each day. I felt that this method was also unaccaptable.
What I chose to do is implement a Captcha system when leaving comments, using the SecureImage plugin. Captcha is a goofy acronym for an even goofier phrase that I’m not going to bother spelling out. What it does is pretty cool, though. When you leave a comment, you’ll be prompted to fill in the usual stuff like your name, email address, etc, as well as verify a random string of characters that is generated on the fly and presented in a graphical format that spambots can’t read. No registration required by you, no moderation required by me, immediate posting of comments.
Try it out now by leaving a comment on this post.
Entry Filed under: This blog
14 Comments Add your own
1. rebecca marie | October 5th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
blogspot has a word verification feature as well, but honestly, i’d rather delete the spam comments then type the word verification. it’s just a personal preference. i am interested on everyone elses opinion though.
case in point…. this is the second time i’ve tried to publish this comment, and i SWEAR i typed in the word verification correctly. as a matter of fact, i can SEE that i did. we’ll see what happens this time when i click “submit
kay, third time’s a charm, i hope… maybe it’s case sensative? we’ll see. seems like too much of a hassle, personally.
okay, fourth time, maybe? i tried refreshing, and getting a new code, here’s to hoping it works…
fifth time…
2. rebecca marie | October 5th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
i’m not joking bill, it finally went on the fifth time. now just for fun… let’s see how many attempts it takes for comment number two..
here goes 1…
3. rebecca marie | October 5th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
bizarre… that one went the first time. anyway… you see my point. i just find it easier to delete the comments than to make my “guests” go through the trouble. maybe it’s more difficult in wordpress to delete comments, i dunno. i mean, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t stop me from commenting, it just seems an unnecessary hassel.
4. Bill | October 5th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
D’oh! Unfortunately, from what I understand, Wordpress doesn’t (yet) have the ability to save information in a field, like the comments, when the page is refreshed (which is basically what happens when the authentication fails for whatever reason.) I still need to tweak the notification that is displayed so the typed comment is made available for the person to copy and paste into the refreshed page.
I just now changed some of the settings so that the text shouldn’t be quite so wavy and swirly and blurry. Also, it is case-sensitive. I discovered this the hard way when I was testing it last night, but I forgot to change the text next to the “Security code” field to explain this.
Thanks for the feedback, RM, it should help make things better!
5. Kathy | October 6th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
I think it is a great idea. I can vouch for Bill in saying that one day we had over 35 spam posts. It is becoming ridiculous.
6. Justin | October 6th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
I think that should go with the log in feature making people register to the site instead of the secure image (I’m not a big fan)
7. tabitha jane | October 7th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
another reason why one would “Get so mad”: comment spam. sucks.
8. Bill | October 7th, 2005 at 6:35 pm
I know! Sucks, blows, bites, etc.
9. Gabe | October 8th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
what does SXUXJg mean???
10. tabitha jane | October 10th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
i know this has nothing to do with comment spam, but i had a dream last night that i met you, bill. you were really nice and had an awesome goatee!
11. Bill | October 10th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
Wow, that’s kinda exciting. It’s true, of course; I am really nice, and I do have an awesome goatee.
I had a really vivid dream the other night, too, but it took place on a cruise ship owned by Kathy’s aunt and uncle (the ones we visited a month ago in Missouri) that was sinking due to the effects of the fighter jets taking off from the aricraft carrier anchored literally inches away from us in the harbor.
I have to stop eating so much pie before going to bed.
12. tabitha jane | October 11th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
i don’t think i ate pie before my dream . . . maybe peanut butter though?
13. Breanna | October 13th, 2005 at 3:49 am
these blog spammers are driving me nuts. not so much because of the spam itself, but the A)ridiculous attempts at seeming sincere “i enjoyed your blog. funny stuff here. keep up the good work.I’ll be sure to bookmark you. oh yeah, also, come see my site about male penis enlargement. seems like something you’d be into.” and B)the AWFUL spelling and grammar “if you want to found a cure click hear.” makes me sick.
i’d much rather have someone be like “hey, i’m just a blammer (get it, blog spammer? i made that up!) and you’re just another victim, so let’s just get to the point. go to my site about a fake fat loss drug and spend all your money, cause i’m way too lazy to get a real job.”
i might actually leave those kind up on the blog.
14. Bill | October 13th, 2005 at 6:55 am
“Blammer”! That’s perfect!
I’m going to make it my goal to weave that word into a conversation at least one time today.
(Oh, and by the way, what were you doing up at 3:49 AM?)
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