After Daniel R installed an anti-spam CAPTCHA I did some digging to see how much comment- and trackback-spam I was catching/not catching. The news is not good:
This blog automatically catches about 850 pieces of spam a month. Happily, I never saw any of those unless I went looking for them in the spam traps.
Another 50 or so slip through and are held for me to moderate (which I do, by ignoring them). That's 50 notification messages that I have to delete from my inbox each month.
The 2 or 3 (max) legit comments each month I get are usually from the 3 of you who read this with any regularity, whose email addresses I've whitelisted, so that your comments are automatically published, and are not held for my approval. But that still means I have to deal with the 50 or so seemingly-legit comments from unlisted email addresses.
The CAPTCHA system should cut down on those. It'll force everyone to enter the code pictured in the grey box below your comment. The 'bots that are spamming me won't know what to do with that code, but the rest of you should. And if you're already whitelisted, entering the code correctly should still let your comment right on through to the other side.
Of course, CAPTCHAs are a big problem for the visually impaired. But...um...hey...
Note: If you mis-type (or omit) the code, you'll get a slightly misleading error message that says you can't post for a little while. I'll see about making that a little more accurate. For now, just back up, and reenter the code to try again.
You'd think I would have something more interesting to say after such a long break in posting. But at the moment....I don't. Soon though.
Comments (7)
Eagles suck
Posted by Jeff | January 8, 2007 8:49 AM
Posted on January 8, 2007 08:49
Oh Jeff...so pithy. So eloquent.
Eagles/Pats on a collision course?
Posted by rotorglow | January 8, 2007 11:13 AM
Posted on January 8, 2007 11:13
Wow, that was meant to be more of a commentary on your spam-bot than my football allegiances. I love that in my three (3!) attempts to post comments on your "web-site", the "eagles suck" one was the only one not Shanghaied by your bots. Tremendous.
Posted by Jeff | January 9, 2007 8:22 AM
Posted on January 9, 2007 08:22
I think the other 2 were lost because someone didn't type the security code correctly.
Might I suggest this?
Posted by rotorglow | January 9, 2007 9:11 AM
Posted on January 9, 2007 09:11
Those were pre-code posts I attempted Old Timer
Posted by Jeff | January 9, 2007 12:39 PM
Posted on January 9, 2007 12:39
Those were pre-code posts I attempted Old Timer
Posted by Jeff | January 9, 2007 12:49 PM
Posted on January 9, 2007 12:49
Whoa whoa whoa! Heard you the first time, sonny.
Posted by rotorglow | January 9, 2007 1:14 PM
Posted on January 9, 2007 13:14