Thursday, January 28, 2010

.

No more anonymous commenting

Speaking of spam: I am turning off the ability to comment anonymously. I’m getting tired of rejecting spam comments, which I’m getting at a rate of ten to twenty a day. Almost all of the spam comments are anonymous, and almost all of the anonymous comments are spam.

Those few of you who don’t want to identify yourselves in any real way can still create a Google or OpenID account using a pseudonym, and you can even change your pseudonym from time to time, if you like. But you'll have to log in, and the “anonymous” choice won’t be there any more.

I’m sorry to have to do this, but, well, blame the spammers.

4 comments:

Sue VanHattum said...

The spam that comes to my blog, Math Mama Writes, is usually not anonymous. It has almost invariably been a short comment on my (cough) lovely writing, and a link, once to "lovely ladies".

I got more of that on a short post on my computer troubles than on any other posts. I wonder if I would have recognized the bs as quickly if someone had been praising one of my better posts.

And then, Owen Thomas, who seems to get annoyed by the logging in process (?), usually leaves his trademark comments as anonymous.

I'm getting maybe one spam a week now. I was just thinking maybe I could turn moderation back off.... Maybe not yet.

Michelle said...

I think that's a fair and sensible thing to do.

The Ridger, FCD said...

Yeah, almost all the anonymous comments are spam - or what I imagine are tests to see if their comments will be deleted. You know, the one-line, irrelevant or empty "I like posts on these topics. Please write more".

I got a great one today, on a post about Obama from almost two years ago. It says "LOL This is a funny place. I think You don't know what you're writing about." So far, okay. But then "Better see some [open url]TRUTH on Saltydrod[close url] and stop wanking like a baby."

Classic.

Frisky070802 said...

Don't people have better things to do with their time?

Anyway, anonymous postings really shouldn't be necessary anyway.

So sayeth the guy who's been hiding behind this moniker since 07/08/02 on slashdot :)