Someone is writing a story about comment spam... they asked me some questions, and as I normally do here are the answers to their questions:
> - Could you tell me more about the experience of dealing with a spam
> deluge, forcing you to shut down comments. When did this happen, how
> often did this happen?
It's happen like twice in our two year history. Floods of spams come in, we shut down for a couple of hours and block the IPs/emails, flush out the trash, and the bastards go away.
It's not a big deal.
> - Also, does spam affect the business of blogging in actual $$$. You
> mentioned that you have developed technology to combat spam, that
> doesn't come free. Can you share anything in terms of economical,
> financial impact?
Zero financial impact. Comment spam is a non issue for us since we, unlike MoveableType, built Blogsmith (our blog software platform) with advanced comment spam protection.
As I mentioned, the only spam that can really get through our defenses are the ones that are hand rolled by a person, and we catch most of those.
> - Would you compare this blog spam and trackback spam to the world of
> e-mail, where spam fighting has become normal and also a normal expense?
It's not a major expense.
You're making it into this major problem. If you have the right software and you put in simple rules it's not a major issue. The problem is the software makers, combined with blog owners, have not done a horrible good with their software. If you put in simple controls the problem goes away. Folks just don't install the tools to block comment spam.
Comment spam interview...
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(Page 1 of 1)2. It's not that comment spam isn't an issue, or that your software is magically invulnerable (it isn't), it's that you aren't a big enough target to be worth it. Email confirmation helps, but simply being obscure helps far more. If Blogsmith was used for more than about 40k blogs spam would start becoming a problem. (That's about when they started targetting WordPress. Before that it was a non-issue.)
3. i just love your blog, great information. check mine out at... IS IT AGAINST THE LAW TO WANT TO SHOT PEOPLE THAT LEAVE THAT AS A COMENT ON YOUR BABY, UH I MEAN BLOG?
but seriously people isn't my new blog great?
Posted at 7:54PM on Apr 9th 2006 by spamarama
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1. People tend to think that SPAM is a big deal for everyone, which obviously is not the case. Corporations may spend lots of money on SPAM because they don't really have a handle on the problem. I'll bet you that many companies have IT folks who could fix the problem given a chance. Many times the solution to a problem is right under your nose, which means ask the people that are, well, right under your nose. This will save you money in the long run and boost morale in your people. It's not what you know, but who your IT guy is.
Posted at 3:36PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Ryan Carter