This is going to be a rant, so apologies on the front end.
I have no problem with the canned meat... I don't like it, but I don't dislike it enough to write a post about it.
Most of you know that I'm a web developer - partly to pay the bills (as Manic Bloom does not at this point in time), but also because I'm an uber-nerd and just love web development. Besides my day job, I've got a few personal projects going as we speak in addition to the usual upkeep of MB.com, and hopefully some of them will reach the light of day and you'll get to use them. (Click here for a random project that exemplifies my nerddom) As such, I spend a lot of time making sure that things run smoothly, and as easy as possible for the normal user. Not to say I'm perfect at it - there are problems time to time, some of which could be avoided.
Which is why I HATE spam. HATE, HATE, HATE it.
I've been deleting at least 15 spam comments per week from our blog, and just now I had to delete almost 100 spam posts on our forum (which will probably disappear soon - humans don't use it, and I'm trying to build something that will take its place). I've spent hours trying to create some sort of anti-spam script in order to keep the jerks out, but it only slows them down. I'm doing everything I can to avoid using a Captcha, which I've used on the MB site in the past, but let's be honest: everyone also hates Captchas. Not as much as spam, but still dislikes fairly passionately. My vision is good, and I can read, but I still screw those things up. If I can't think of something good soon, it's going to come to that.
I'm not usually a revenge kind of guy, but I think spammers should get 500 emails a day (from different emails and at different times so that they're not easy to delete in bulk) to any and all personal email accounts they might have. And they should also be fined per spam content that they post/email. Like a dollar per. Because it costs time to get rid of them.
That's not too much to ask, right?
I just can't understand why a human (intelligent enough to write a program that can get through fairly tough code security) would rather plaster ads for free thesis papers and divorce lawyers, than use their time solving some great problem of our generation. Or small problems. Or not problems, even. Twitter isn't solving a problem, but I can respect the developers. In the time that it takes for these punks to circumvent new securities, they could instead use their time to figure out how to get clean water to villages in Africa, or food to the guy that holds up a sign at the street corner. Heck, they could write a short self help book on how they resist the strange urges to spam people.
None of our readers/followers/friends want viagra. Or - if they do - they don't want to buy it from a commenter on our blog.
-David
MB
Look Dad Creative
Alicia
Jan 5, 2011 @ 2:50am
David sorry to hear about the spam but you have to do what you have to do some times and if that is captcha so spam can stop by all means do it until you can think or do something else :) I want to run this one pass you Lowes had a major issue on black friday and all systemed crashed so what they came up with was instead of captcha they had a question for you to answer like 4 + 4 then a box for you to answer. Hope all is well with everyone we miss our Manic Monday's. Jessie is waving a hand at you all too. Have a great day.
Patrick
Jan 5, 2011 @ 4:10am
Ooh i hate it too, i love hearing about mass-spammers getting caught and fined, but it happens too rarely.
Wouldn't questions like "Are you human?" keep spam out? or "Do you breathe air?", or maybe it has to be something without a yes/no answer.
Otherwise i am for the use of captcha or whatever it takes to beat spam.
90% of sent emails is spam, I wonder how much that adds to global warming. 200billion emails per day must have an impact on energy usage.
zoidberg
Jan 5, 2011 @ 8:53am
Spam killed all those cute birds that fell from the sky......
Back to topic^^:Moderate it or use captchas otherwise you won´t win this fight and just get more and more upset (just my 2 cts, and I have given up the fight myself on my site), so if you happen to find a way to strike back drop me a call.
Kyle Hinterser
Jan 5, 2011 @ 10:27am
I don't like captchas as much as the next guy, but they do their job fairly well and would not be opposed to something like that.
I will have to agree with Alicia though, the simple math captchas are probably the best way to go since the images don't need to be altered enough for a machine not to read since the image isn't what they're supposed to put in it. Good luck with this and I will try to think of something to do to help you!
Cole Morris
Jan 5, 2011 @ 12:12pm
I never liked spam, canned meats are disgusting.
David
Jan 6, 2011 @ 6:09am
Thanks for the input everybody! I woke up this morning to 17 spam comments... They're never on the newest blog - so hopefully no one ever sees them, but they make me crazy.
I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve, and I'm going to test a couple of them right after I post this comment. The 4+4 and human questions are a good idea - I'll look into those. The problem is, they can't be too simple or else bots can figure them out just as easy as humans. I'm trying everything I can to make it automated so that it still doesn't take any extra effort for a human to post - which could be why it's still easy for smart bots to post!
Mandy
Jan 6, 2011 @ 6:16am
For what it's worth, I don't mind Captchas. Usually the blogs I'm commenting on are worth my time enough to take an extra 15 seconds or so to do the Captcha (or more, depending on if I'm awake enough to read the thing!). Good luck David!
Ben of BenandJacq
Jan 6, 2011 @ 6:30am
David,
Is this site powered by wordrpress? If not, it should be. And then you should install the askimet plugin immediately. It does what you did this morning, but automatically. It checks all comments against a GINORMOUS spam database, and marks as spam the ones that are.
I have only had to "un-spam" about 10 comments that it errantly called spam. One by Josh Stevenson, so it was probably just being careful :)
Willie
Jan 20, 2011 @ 4:26pm
I've seen it done before where people write a script to create a word problem or a math problem. They use different images and different numbers. That seems to be one way to do it, mostly to just create one of those simple. "If Jan is taller than Joe, and Joe is shorter than Mary, yet Mary is twice height as Max, who's tallest?" type of thing.
Or just a simple Random number generator and math problem using images and text to help confuse the bots that try to break through.
David
Jan 20, 2011 @ 5:14pm
I finally bit the bullet and added a captcha... All of my efforts of slightly easier bot killers did not work.
@Ben - it's not WordPress - it's one that I built. WordPress is fine, but I'd much rather use my own code. I looked into the akiamet plugin, but I don't like the idea of a computer deleting posts. I want spam to not happen at all!
Thanks for the feedback and support all!
Hennessy
Jan 20, 2011 @ 7:17pm
No idea about the techinal linguistics up there, but I can not wait to break this hiatus... eagerly awaiting 01/28/2011. Do IT UP!!! And if there is some new stuff going on there, it would be for the best if I stay in the corner until I can thrash with precision.... hahaha! Thanks again for comin out 12/07, Katrina and I will most definitely be there 01/28.....
p.s.- Though I am unable to hack a/an akiamet plugin, I am horrid at the Captcha. I needst get the eyes checked or suffer much frustration (4th time at this point)!!!!
David
Jan 20, 2011 @ 8:37pm
Heck YES Brian!
I just fixed it so that if you get the Captcha wrong, the stuff you wrote fills in... Nothing more frustrating than writing the same thing 4 times!
David
Jan 22, 2011 @ 2:18pm
Hopefully just figured out one thing that might work without the Captcha...
Jeff Hunter
Feb 23, 2011 @ 11:29am
It is because you follow your links. If you add a no follow to the comments this should help. Also you are on a list of do follow blogs.
David
Mar 9, 2011 @ 6:34pm
Thanks for that tip Jeff! I was actually complete unaware of the nofollow attribute, so I did a little research and added them. Also added a couple other things so that I start tracking where some of the spammers are coming from.
Brandon
May 25, 2011 @ 8:48am
I just ordered your cd. I am subcribed to a guy who makes Halo montages and used one of your songs as the background.
Just want you to know people are listening and enjoying your music. I can't wait to get my cd in the mail!
Hope all is well and continue the great work!
David
May 27, 2011 @ 3:46pm
Awesome - thanks for listening and buying a copy of our CD Brandon!
-David
MB
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