Spam Spam Spam
I've been getting a bunch of comment spam in the last week or so. An occasional comment spam here or there wouldn't really bother me--they're pretty easy to spot and delete, after all--but the frequency seems to be increasing. Blogger sites are pretty easy to target.
So I'm considering installing human-verification in comments. Since without the spammers, this site would barely have any comments, I wonder whether the added step of proving oneself human would make potential commentors think replying not worth it. What do you think?
So I'm considering installing human-verification in comments. Since without the spammers, this site would barely have any comments, I wonder whether the added step of proving oneself human would make potential commentors think replying not worth it. What do you think?
Marilee Scott 10:09 PM
3 Comments:
I added a very simple comment password to my WordPress-based site, and it stopped spam *cold*. Haven't had any since, and I was getting up to 300 a day. I didn't even have to break accessibility to do it. Unfortunately, most implementations I've seen - including, I believe, Blogger's - do break accessibility. Sightless people can't do anything with a code presented as a warped and distorted image; if they could, the spam programs could use the same algorithms and you'd be back where you started. I don't know how important that audience or that principle is to you, but it would have been a deal-breaker for me.
http://pl.atyp.us
Thanks for your comments, and thanks especially for your sensitivity to the questions I'm most particularly worried about.
Please forgive me if I'm being ridiculous, but how do people without site access blogs like ours? I've seen blogs that have visually enabled audible human-verification codes.
I would really like to accomodate as many people as possible; if you have any good information about how people whose sight isn't quite all that access the internet and how best to accomodate them, I would like to know.
Please, anyone who is struggling with the visual layout here, and anyone who has solutions here, please let me know.
In about two weeks, I may instantiate visual anti-spam measures, but I'm more than open to hearing alternative arguments.
Since I doubt that I've more than five readers, one of whom is Hilzoy, another of whom is Eerie, a reader desiring special measures from me will have to email me.
I'm sufficiently convinced by "anonymous" that visual confirmation of humanity is effectively discriminatory that I won't press the issue right now. Still, if anyone know someone without fully sighted capacity who also pursues the net, I'd like to hear from him or her.
someone shoudl invent a human test (turing test?) that says "Win this game of tic-tac-toe" (with one click)
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