Comments on your blog

There are other options that you haven't mentioned such as moderating comments combined with a spam filtering system. WordPress has a plug-in called Spam Karma that works very well - from my experience - to filter out all the spam I get.

I had a situation where a publisher I was working with found my personal blog and then decided to use it against me -- called me unprofessional and went as far as to cut and paste specific entries into an email addressed to me and the owner of the publication we were working with. I felt horribly violated. So, from then on, I only allowed people who subscribed to my blog to read it and make comments. I've been thinking about switching to a different network and, when I do, there won't be anything personal in that blog. It's still bothering me.

I use the Haloscan comment system and I really haven't had any problems with spammers, at least not yet. However, there is a site called Spam Poison which is suppose to keep spammers from getting your email address off your blog, website or whatever.

All you have to do is put their text link or button on your site and supposedly when a spammer finds your site it re-routes them to theirs. I'm not sure if it actually works or not but I haven't been getting any spam mail. So, maybe it might help with spam comments too?

The message here is that there is a very good chance that someone will find something that you have posted on the internet - eventually.Unless you create one under another name, blogs are quite personal and can be damning - as you found out. This represents one of the disadvantages of a blog.

ATP

ATP said:

The message here is that there is a very good chance that someone will find something that you have posted on the internet - eventually.Unless you create one under another name, blogs are quite personal and can be damning - as you found out. This represents one of the disadvantages of a blog.

ATP

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more! I thought about not using my name on here, too, but running it together without a space helps. Not that I post anything personal in forums, but still . . .

I keep my comments open for everyone; I use Haloscan instead of Blogger's commenting system, so it's rare that I get spam. If I do, it's easy enough to delete. I've never considered adding anything to impede comments...I don't like blogs that require registration to comment and while I understand and tolerate word verification, it's a pain in the butt sometimes.

I want people to comment. I'd like to say it's ecause I encourage interaction and discussion, but it's probably because I have such a big ego...

If I don;t like a comment I delete it. I don't block all readers just because of a few idiots.

I'm with Thumper and veinglory here - if I get a comment that's spam I'll delete it.

I had terrible trouble with my old blog that's hosted and under my own domain name. I had to disable pings and clean comment spam pretty much daily. I ended up disabling comments on any posts that were in the archives. It's sad, really.

That said, I need to find a plug-in for Moveable Type that might help with that...more homework for Dawno!

I use comment moderation and I delete any spam. It does not take you long time to accept or reject a comment. In my own experience I have seen that when I visit any blog and then I have to login and comment, in many cases I just don't put a comment. I crave for comments from my readers as this is perhaps the best way of interaction. I belive that blogging is meant to be interactive. I like blogger because it is very fast and easy to use.

sanyuja said:

May be I should move to WordPress. So, when you say the spam does not show up, you mean it is not visible on your blog or it is automatically deleted?

Click to expand...

Under WordPress (WP), there are several options for handling comments. WP will let you put all comments into moderation so that you have a chance to look at the comments and then approve them before they are displayed on your site. Or, you can turn on WP's built-in blacklist which looks for specific phrases and URLs in any posted comments and blocks those comments only. If you want to get really fancy, you can use plugins like Bad Behaviour or Spam Karma. Bad Behaviour detects spammer like activity (mostly for spam robots) and blocks those guys before they can even get to your site whereas Spam Karma assigns a score to each comment based on a lot of factors such as how long ago the entry was posted, whether the entry has other comments, whether the poster came from a blacklisted IP and so on and then decides whether to publish the comment or hold it for moderation. As you can see, I like WP

I use Typepad and I don't have any problems with spam. But not to say it won't happen. And if so, I'll just delete it too.

I hate the word verification--I can never read those things, but my spam problems went away on blogspot after I turned that feature on. I hate to have to login somewhere to comment, but I'll type the stupid words. I figured my readers would, too.

I have word verification because I was getting a lot of spam. I also have it set so that I can moderate comments on my blog. I've had a few bizarre space cadets leave comments about the end of the world and how this or that member of the royal family is responsible for genocide - whatever. Since I've turned the moderation on I haven't had any problem with the comments that people leave.

People don't have to be logged in to comment, anyone can do so, I just don't think it's fair to have someone sign up for blogger just to comment. I know that it would deter me.

Glad to hear you like it Try out the plugins - there's a whole world of plugins which do so many things in WP. Of course, some badly written plugins also create a lot of load on the server. So you gotta watch out for that. If you need any help, just holler since I run a WP blog and have set up/administrated several others over the years

LOL. How am I to keep up with all these WP threads? Going over there now ...