contentious.com

(NOTE: On May 19 I wrote a follow-up article describing how other bloggers are similarly affected by comment spam.)

I hope, indeed I dearly pray, that somewhere there is a very special hell for spammers – especially the virulent sleazoids who post comment spam to weblogs. (I am not alone in this wish, I know.)

Over the last week, CONTENTIOUS has been “crapflooded” with pornographic comment spam. Several times daily, some nasty little cretin has been using an automated script to post hundreds of comment spams to this weblog within minutes. Removing this detritus isn’t quite as hard as scraping graffiti off walls, but it’s damn tedious and extremely annoying.

For now, I’m tired of fighting the comment spammers. Although I truly hate to curtail public discussion, I’ve decided to temporarily suspend the comment function of CONTENTIOUS, while I switch to a different weblog software package that allows me to fend off such abuses easily.

More about this decision…

Unfortunately, SixApart (creators of my chosen weblog software, Movable Type) have had a major blind spot concerning the prevention and removal of comment spam. Currently, if you’re not using the just-released latest version of Movable Type (3.0), implementing good anti-comment-spam procedures in Movable Type requires searching for and painstakingly installing a number of server-side hacks created by other users.

If you’re not a geek, or haven’t married one (like I did – thanks everso, Tom sweetheart!), these fixes are probably beyond your capabilities. This means your Movable Type weblog is probably a sitting duck for the worst comment spammers.

MY SOLUTION

Sometime in the next week I’ll be switching to WordPress – which not only has been getting high marks for usability and versatility from many respected bloggers, but which also appears to be quite user friendly. Even more importantly, it offers some strong, simple options for preventing comment spam.

WordPress also is open-source software available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This means that anyone is free to modify, share, and redistribute this program – something that, in my experience, fosters the kind of experimentation and creativity that keeps great software vital and useful.

This approach stands in sharp contrast to the recent move by SixApart to modify Movable Type’s pricing and license structure in a way that many longtime users believe constitutes a “bait and switch.”

Personally, I can understand SixApart’s move from a business standpoint, but from my perspective as a user it’s just one more major strike against Movable Type. I think decent comment spam protection should be a fundamental consideration for any weblogging software, whether free or not. Movable Type is now offering this protection only under its new terms and prices. Therefore, Movable Type is no longer right for me. (Also, I tend to not trust a company that would spring such a sweeping change on its users, especially without fixing a major existing flaw that should have been addressed from the first release.)

So hello, WordPress.

Once I have WordPress implemented and everything safely moved over there, you’ll be able to post comments to CONTENTIOUS once more. In the meantime, feel free to e-mail me your comments and I can post them on your behalf.

Thanks for your patience,

- Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS