Thank god I don’t get comment spam. But then again, who likes to comment with Blogger comments enabled… (alternative suggestions welcome!)

Posted by Joost at 1pm on 31.07.04

I know - I don’t like the Blogger solution, or TypeKey, really. It seems like an imposition on readers to expect them to register in order to make a quick comment.

The reason for my outburst was about three hundred comment spams in one night - since MT-Blacklist doesn’t currently work with the version of Movable Type I’m using, I have nothing to block them with, and no easy means of deleting them… maybe I should just redesign the site so Googlebots don’t like it so much!

Posted by Jack at 5pm on 01.08.04

300? erk, that’s grim. bloody buggers.

Posted by Donna at 7pm on 01.08.04

Probably a bugger to code, but have you seen the nifty solution over at Samizdata? I’m sure they’d share the know-how with you if you ask nicely.

Posted by Squander Two at 3pm on 02.08.04

That is quite a slick system (and easier to implement than it looks) but I’m keen to keep the commenting process as simple and accessible as possible for people reading the site and captchas (the ‘Turing test’ images on Samizdata) are effective at keeping robot commenters at bay, but they also prevent genuine live human people browsing with images turned off, or using text-only browsers, screen-readers, etc. from commenting.

It’s all pretty depressing really - keeping comments on and easy to use is a bit like saying ‘All back to mine!’ after a club, only to find that in amongst your friends is a bloke who thinks it’s okay to take a shit on the living room carpet…

Posted by Jack at 11am on 05.08.04