We have been getting hit very hard with comment spam as of late. As mentioned in the last post, this is something we typically deal with on a regular basis for the past 6 years, but some weeks are like this week where it is just crazy. Because of the way things are right now, I have disabled the ability to toggle on or off the CAPTCHA controls for comments. I know some bloggers are going to get mad, but we need to see if the lack of CAPTCHA on some blogs is the key cause of SPAM or if they are manually entering the data and filling in the CAPTCHA. I will report back on what we are seeing, but for a few weeks we are just going to require CAPTCHA controls on comments.
This has been a public service announcement for Geekswithblogs.net :D
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I don’t know a member on Geekswithblogs.net that is not frustrated with the amount of spam they get. It is a major problem that we have been dealing with for 6+ years and trying to come up with new ways to fight. As spammers get smarter, we have to continue to upgrade the tools we use to combat it. Just like any spam filter, sometimes good comments will get caught up. This has been a huge concern for some bloggers causing us to tame what we call spam and not spam.
So this post is here just to state we know the spam problem is like a wave, sometimes it is not so bad, other times it gets worse. Right now it is worse. One measure we will take is a requirement for CAPTCHA soon if it continues since most members don’t clean up their spam via the admin tools (which are not the best tools, I know). Also I want to solicit a better approach from the members, what would you like the spam interface on GWB to be like? Be realistic cause we all want “Zero Spam, Good Comment live”.
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Spam
The first suggested item (and only at this point) was a higher level of skin customization on Geekswithblogs.net.
Currently we have over 10 skins to pick from and the ability to change the CSS for those skins. In the skins list, you will find one labeled Naked that doesn't add any formatting, but allows you to define what items look like and what gets displayed. I understand our skin approach is not good by any means and needs a dramatic update. Here is what we came up with in our conversation with the blogger.
- Better tools for editing CSS from the server
- Preview of changes before publishing
- Retrievable CSS configurations for different custom themes
- Better image upload for use of custom themes
- More skins selection
- Updated current skins to fix formatting issues with newer browsers and Firefox/Opera/Chrome
I would really like to gauge your feedback on these items to see what is important. I know one of my biggest complaints I get is customizable themes, but typically users don't know about the options so we have done a bad job of explaining what is possible and showing every user how to do so. We have a public tutorial system we once tried and wanted it to be member managed as well and the GWB staff contributing, but that went downhill at some point. Maybe it is time to kick that back into gear for the new bloggers we have added over the past couple of years.
What do you think? What else is on your mind?