captsolo weblog

Spam is a big problem these days. Any kind of spam - e-mail / comment / trackback / referer - you name it.

What is interesting, though, is how people react to the spam:

1) do nothing
this shows a badly maintained site

2) deny everything
close comments, disable trackbacks, ...

this works, but basically the spammers have won - they just made you restrict your audience for something where your readers are not guilty. basically, you disable feedback.

[More:]

3) restrict access
must register to comment, ...

this works, is less restrictive than choice no 2. but does that mean that in order to post occasional comments on 10+ blogs I would have to register on all these sites?

that would ask for a single sign-on. if you could register once and then be a valid commenter on a number of sites, the inconvenience would be kept to minimum.

4) more sophistication
something better

create solutions to restrict spam while keeping the ability for feedback. this requires more action and less re-action. the result is better software and more how-to on combatting spam and making life easier.

I intended to comment a blog post, but since it requires one to register, I will trackback it instead. Let's see if it allows trackbacks or not.