Every morning I wake up to be greeted by an emailbox showing new comments to TYWKIWDBI for me to review and weed. And every morning I have to delete utter crap like the above, some of which has made its way through filters and has to be manually expunged.
I don't want to ban comments, which thanks to the readership here often contains more insights and information than the posts themselves, and I don't want to make the signup too onerous. I have wondered if there is a mechanism to stop comments on posts older than XX days (?30, ?60 should allow access by all regular readers), but then some of the classic posts like Squirrel eating a bird or How to break your arm on purpose, which continue to garner relevant comments years after they were posted, would be inaccessible. But that may be the tradeoff to make my mornings more pleasant.
Is there such a time-based filter available via Blogspot? I can't seem to find one. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
I'd be okay with something like this: I sign up with my email and receive a password to enable commenting. This could be a one time thing, or a recurring one, as necessary. I think the kind of people who comment here think the few extra minutes this takes are worth it.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to remember one more site-specific account, I probably wouldn't bother. But that is just me.
DeleteAre these comments getting by the CAPTCHAs, or are those not enabled? (I guess I'm testing that right now). I'm getting sick and tired of Evil on the internet. I just helped two friends who were pwned by fake tech support calls from "Microsoft", and how much energy (literal electricity, as well as human effort) preventing/fighting malware? Why isn't karma more immediate?
ReplyDeleteI see the CAPTCHA is working, but there are ways to circumvent. Maybe allow posting only by Google account, or otherwise restrict posting to known accounts? That sucks too, though. Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteYou could try Disqus or a similar service. They might be better at keeping the spambots away?
ReplyDelete(Even though those give me NSA-spied-on vibes)
I think the limitations are with blogspot. I wouldn't dare suggest you migrate to a Wordpress site with the amazing catalog of posts you have, but tech like Akismet (a plugin for Wordpress sites) does a really good job of detecting these sorts of posts and quarantining them without you even needing to see them.
ReplyDeleteYou can turn on moderation for comments on posts which are more than a certain number of days old in Blogger. You would still have to sort through the spam though, I suppose, so maybe that's no advantage.
ReplyDeleteI was just going to suggest this. I turned on moderation on my Blogspot blog and specified the number of days. I started at 30, and I'm now at 15 days. I can tell you my spam dropped to almost nothing.
DeleteGo into your Settings, then click on Posts and Comments and set Moderation to Sometimes and specify the number of days. The spammy comments will still be emailed to you, but at least they won't post to the blog. One of the options in the email will be Delete. :)
Much easier than moving your blog. :)
I currently have it set at 28, but I'll try 15.
DeleteDo you always report them as spam? Not trying to be a smartass, but I've found being very consistent with that really helps. On the other hand, I have a tiny fraction of the number of visitors.
ReplyDeleteThen answer is OBVIOUS: John Morkel must be tracked down and killed! No need to thank me. I'll send a bill.
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to close the gate to further comments? I've seen "comments are closed" or some such on some posts on other blogs.
ReplyDeleteI believe I can close the comments on any given post when I write it (I've done it for the "bye I'm off for a week" entries), but I wouldn't want to do that on a regular basis, because the comment threads are an integral part of this blog.
DeleteThe problem is multi-year-ago posts about snakes or cement floors that draw spam from snake wine salesmen and construction contractors. I'd like to cut off comments for posts older than a couple months - but I can't do it manually for 12,000 posts.
If it's automated, then it is "reading" the CAPTCHA, etc., I suppose. What if you exchanged that for the kind that make you add up two number (e.g., what is the 2 times 3?)? I wonder if that would defeat any automation for now?
ReplyDeleteIt just occurred to me that if you have an account, the CAPTCHA may not be required. I'm testing that with this post. If it is NOT required if you use, say, your Google account, then perhaps it SHOULD be, since that is how the spam is arriving...or perhaps you can block the spammer by knowing their ID. NOPE, even Google requires the CAPTCHA.
ReplyDeleteYou can also remove (not allow) anonymous comments. That made a huge difference for me.
ReplyDeleteI think banning anons would cut off comments from quite a few regular readers - and as per the example(s) in the embed above, most of my spam comments come from named entities, not anons.
DeleteI have never been able to post responses on this blog anonymously, and I don't want to use the other options available. (This won't post either, so I'll keep it short.) So, whatever you do to make it harder to post, might end up affecting reasonable readers as well.
ReplyDeleteOMG....honestly, it's the first time it's worked for me....in many years of reading this blog! I even felt sad I couldn't send a photo of our bookcases, because you had no way to know I'm a regular reader!
DeleteI haven't changed anything since you experienced the frustrations. Are you using a different browser, or a computer with different security settings?
DeleteI often wonder, when I se spam comments like that, if it generates enough traffic for the spammers to make it worth doing. I guess it must, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. Which makes the problem theoretically easy to solve: people need to wake up, and use common sense. Stop following obviously fake links, and the spammers will have no reason to post them.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just about clicking them. In fact, some spam posts are set up to look like actual relevant comment, with a tiny link hidden in say, a full-stop (AKA a period to North American folk) or comma intended not to be clicked or even seen at all, but to simply remain undeleted by the blog owner. This can manipulate page rankings in search engines, for example. No clicking needed.
DeleteSo, would the comments we are talking about, here, manipulate the rankings up, or down? If the answer is down, why would someone want to do that? A similar blog, with a jealous webmaster?
DeleteRod - here is an example of the type of spam Jim is describing -
Deletehttp://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/07/most-subtle-spam-ive-ever-seen.html
Had I not detected and vaporized it, the spammer would have gotten "credit" by search engines for having a link in a quality site like TYWKIWDBI.
That is subtle, all right. I never knew a link could be hidden in a period. It is to your credit that you continue on against these lowlifes.
DeleteDeleting their comments isn't a very satisfying way of working "against" them. It's like scooping up the dog turd after the stray dog shits in your yard.
DeleteI think you misunderstand. The manipulation is for the benefit of the page being surreptitiously linked to.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity you can't farm out the weeding (as it were). Something like all comments go through a third party, they take out the obvious spam and forward you the rest. It won't take care of everything but it allows everyone to comment and you not to see the bulk of the spam you get. Is there a service like this out there? And if there isn't, there should be. I wish I could volunteer to help with this. I love your blog and it sucks that you have to do so much work just to keep the site readable.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what spam-fighting tools Blogspot has available, but there may be something similar to Wordpress' Akismet or Spam Karma. Those use a weighted average of a comment's characteristics to decide whether it's spam or not (things like, how fast the comment was posted after the page loaded, how many links the post contains, whether certain spammy words are present, etc.). They also have a blacklist where you can manually block problematic IP addresses. That type of tool definitely helps keep spam manageable; you may want to see if Blogspot has that kind of plugin.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to export the blog content and import it to a wordpress? A privately hosted wordpress would provide a wealth of anti-spam solutions.
ReplyDeletemy husband (a tech geek who runs two blogs) recommends using this service, which he says works great and cost is fairly low http://akismet.com/
ReplyDelete