This is just to announce briefly that comment spam has once again reared its ugly head. Some spam comments are actually making it through the filters to be published here. I delete them as soon as I see them, but I'm dismayed that they're getting through.
As a result I may be tightening up the spam filter score a bit. That means more comments than usual might be held up for moderation. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
Blame the spammers, the lowest life form on the Internet.
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(Now that I look at the title, that sounds like an incredibly tepid harness-team command. "On, Moderation! Forward, with prudent speed!" I could clear that up by adding "Comment" in the middle, but I kind of like the image...)
Over at Boing Boing, Teresa Nielsen Hayden has posted a long explanation…
I'm dying here, people. It's spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spammity, spam, spam, spam. I get up every morning and get to spend a half hour cleaning up the crap that accumulates every night, and have to invest more time at intervals during the day…
Thanks to everyone who participated in the unscientific survey on commenting. The results are back, and I'd like to share them with you.
As many of you have noticed, we've been talking about comments a lot here lately, both at BioE and on Sb in general. There's also a big session on online civility…
The commenting issues here are seriously driving me nuts. I've just written another letter of complaint on the Seed backchannel, which always seems to mean that it will sink into neglect once again, so I've decided to also post it here, publicly. I hate to air dirty laundry like this because I…
I'm having this problem too, and our spam filters don't work at all. I now have a situation where all real comments are being automatically put in the "junk" folder, whereas many of the spam comments are still making it through for my consideration. So I have to delete all the spam comments and then go through the junk folder to find the real comments. You would think a spam filter would have at least *some* skill at identifying which comments are spam, and which aren't.
Well, I think the real problem is more that the spammers know what is getting filtered and how to get around it while your commenters are just "talking". Since it's not an AI bot, the spam filter can only do what it's programmed to do, not "learn" what the spammers are doing and react to it while judging your real commenters' posts as adequate and letting them through. Of course, you probably already knew that...
Can't you put in a word verification system? Type in this word you see in the image sort of thing?
No, the lowest form of internet life are in fact phishers.
I agree with word verification - moderately annoying to commenters, I know, but currently the best solution.
In the unlikely event I ever get into a government position, I'll try to push for a bill that criminalizes spam and phishing, making them punishible by summary execution.
Would it be possible to set up a Bayesian spam filter? Those tend to do well after 2-4 weeks of "training".
(I don't know how to set one up. I just know that it's a lot nicer a month after you have one start screening your e-mails. I have a friend who knows a lot more about it, but he may be really busy right now.)
You'll find a solution here.
http://www.learningmovabletype.com/archives/001549comment_spam_alert.php