Sunday, October 09, 2005

Comment Spam

The options on this blog have now been changed to protect it from "Comment Spam" (not that we get many comments anyway!) Anyone can now post, you will just have to pass the "word verification" option. Any known comment spam will be forwarded to Google for their attention - perhaps they, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the whole Linux community can get together and rid the world of spam. Or Not.

What is the word verification option?

The "word verification" option can be found on the Settings | Comments tab for your blog, and it looks like this:

If you choose "yes" for this setting, then people leaving comments on your blog will be required to complete a word verification step, similar to the one presented when you create a blog:

What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to your blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam. A lot of this is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.

(By the way this is called a CAPTCHA - a cutesy acronym that stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

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2 comments:

  1. S2:17 pm

    Hi Bruce! If you can read this, you have found me.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    I can see by your shirt you have finally found Nemo.

    My blog is for me to write about content taht I am intetested in, and for commenters to write on the same. Not for blog spam ie random, off-topic commnets designed to drive up the hits of someone's else's business website because the google search algorithm is not as smart as as I am in telling the difference between blog spam and genuine comments.

    I don't care about google, search engines, spiders, robots or whatever. Think of that - web content not intended as an enormous marketing tool in order to make money for you to buy more of your awfully coloured shirts!

    Bruse, if you are a the web guru that you think you are, reply to my post, on my blog that you spammed - you see, i am making this comment anonymous as a bit of a challenge for you.

    This will prove to me that you acknowledge the spamminess of your original comment, and also, allow us to have real conversation instead of a text war mediated by unintelligent AI.

    PS Love the shirt! I have 5 or 6 like them myself!

    ReplyDelete
  2. S10:16 am

    Ah Bruce

    You found me. Good for you!

    Pardon my ignorance but I don;t know what "unfortunate episode" you are writing about. If my comments have been inaccurate, misleading or falsely represent your views, then I apologise.

    But I still stand about what I said about my own blog.

    "My blog is for me to write about content that I am intertested in, and for commenters to write on the same".

    I am interested in blog spam, inasmuch as I don't want any of it. Your comments about my post are, of course, relevant, on-topic and welcome.

    For the unholy altar crowd, may their end, and their means to achieve it, come as soon as possible.

    Googlebot, are you listening?

    ReplyDelete