thatadamguy

> erm just do not allow people to post in post that are older than
> 30 days will combat most of the spams. At least that works for me
Like Antifuse, I like getting comments on old entries. In my case, I actually already get MORE (legitimate) comments in my old entries because some of them have become quite popular via Google searches. The last thing I want is for people to discover my blog via a keyword search and discover that the entry that mosts interests them is closed to commenting.
However, I do realize that comment spammers tend to gravitate towards the old entries. And while this might be over-complicated, maybe a points system is in order, sort of like how some e-mail anti-spam systems work (e.g., SpamAssasin)?
A comment would get ‘points’ if:
– it’s posted to an entry older than [x] days
– it is spam based on a Bayesian measurement
– it is by someone with an unrecognized e-mail address (someone who hasn’t posted before)
– it was posted less than [x] seconds after a previous post by the same IP address or with the same URL
… and all comments with more than a certain number of points would get rejected as spam. Actually, what’d be really amusing is if they were “posted” but only visible to the poster himself/herself (based upon cookies/IP addresses, etc.) so the spammer’d THINK the note got posted, but no one else would see it.
Sure, this would take some configuring, but the neat part is that — in its multi-prongness — it’d be ridiculously difficult for spammers to defeat! They wouldn’t know which specific features were triggering the refusal of their spam, and so it’d be quite hard for them to adapt.
What do you think?

> That won’t work because if a comment’s headers indicate it comes
> from the commenter. We’re probably going to go the no-body route.
This can easily be taken care of without removing the body of the notes.
Upon WP installation, ask the admin to pick a special comment-moderation password. Have that word used in a WP header (“X-WP-moderation: Fr,37qp” for example) and then it’s a simple exercise on nearly any e-mail client to whitelist any message with that header.

I suggested something similar in another thread, but it could apply in this situation, too:
How about a three-prong approach?
1) If user is registered, comments are posted immediately.
2) If user is not registered, he or she has the option to enter in text from an image token, and then have the comment posted instantly.
3) If user is not registered and does not wish to or is unable to enter in the text from the image token, then his or her comment will be queued for review.
In this way, EVERYONE is accommodated, but spam is still (from what I can tell) thwarted from appearing on one’s blog.
Your thoughts?

How about this:
– Comments from registered users are posted immediately
– Comments from unregistered users are queued for review
Would this be possible / desireable?

Yes, that did the trick. Thanks very much!

Thanks for the prompt reply! Adding the feed now! ??

Ah! Well, I haven’t downloaded WordPress yet (still in the ‘looking’ stage), and perhaps I should have done that before I spoke above.
From what you’re suggesting, allusion, and from what I happened to catch on Alex King’s site, it appears that it *IS* possible to have a “next page” setup.
If this is indeed offered without significant hackage, I stand both corrected and humbled, and I appreciate the info.
I still look forward to reading more MT/Wordpress comparisons so I can make an informed decision about whether to make the switch or start my new blog up in WordPress.
Indeed, after at least a bit of looking, it seems that these are the two primary candidates I should be considering. pMachine did look promising, but I was bummed that it’s not yet possible to add an entry to more than one category.
Anyway, thanks again for the replies here! Hopefully I’ll have a chance to try out WordPress 1.0 soon (I’ve already played with the interface of the older version on opencms).

Thanks so much for the prompt reply! I’m especially pleased to learn that WordPress has fewer template files to edit than MT; that, at least, would make my switchover a bit less daunting. ??
I do have to admit that I’m a bit surprised that neither WordPress nor, for that matter, any other CMS ‘sides pMachine seems to offer what I consider to be intuitive navigation right out of the box.
I offer a more detailed rant here, but basically I’m dumbfounded that there’s no simple way for someone who reads through a blog’s homepage to click on a link at the bottom to “read more [chronologically next] entries.” Instead, they must find the archives link, determine what month or week they left off at (which then sometimes necessitates scrolling BACK to the bottom of the page), clicking on the relevant link, then scrolling past the entries they’ve already read, and so on.
Am I the only person who finds this to be shockingly lame?
And mind you, I’m not (just) slamming WordPress here — I’m questioning a basic UI flaw of (to my knowledge) nearly all blogging software ??
I know, I know, pretty presumptious for me in my 2nd post here. But oh well ??

Those of us who use AdSense are not permitted to disclose figures (dang over-restrictive AdSense terms!), but I can say that AdSense has been good to me; I’ve earned more with AdSense than with most other affiliate program links, and with a lot less work (stick the code on the page and forget about it :D)