Tobold's Blog
Sunday, December 06, 2009
 
Anonymous commenting turned temporarily off

I don't know whether it is an effect of the holiday season or what, but in the last weeks the amount of anonymous comment spam has exploded. For example one identical comment spam mail was posted 46 times this week on different blog posts. Comment spam increases my blog administration workload considerably. In addition Blogger seems to have a technical problem with comment moderation at the moment, so that when I decide to publish or reject a comment, half of the time the comment is still in the list of comments to moderate, and I have to repeat the moderation several times before it goes away.

As I am quite busy with other things, I therefore decided to temporarily turn off anonymous commenting, probably until the end of the year. That should put a stop to much of the comment spam. This means that in the coming weeks you will need either a Google account or an OpenID to post a comment on my blog. As getting such an ID is free, and still largely anonymous, I think that this is not too much of a restriction.
Comments:
Seems like a pretty decent decision on your part to me.

Honestly, I would assume that commenters who wish to put forward a relevant statement don't mind using a logged-in name. I don't mind, at all.

Seriously, keep it a policy. I can pretty much guarantee that no one who wishes to posit a serious post has a problem with using an established name.

If anyone says that they do have a problem, they are lying.
 
makes sense, its shame what the keyboard-shield can do to people's egos sometimes.
 
For anybody regularily posting this isn't a problem at all.

For new reader, however, it is a serious barrier. You probably know that :)
 
Totally understandable. As Nick said, any comment worth making won't need to be made anonymously. I appreciate the time and effort it takes to put out a good blog like yours. Moderating it shouldn't be any more of a chore than necessary.

There are blogs where it makes sense to allow anonymous comments, but this one definitely doesn't require it.
 
The price of popularity, it seems, is that you are also popular with every tom, dick, and spammer too. My own blog is so far under the radar that not even the spammers bother me, so while I commiserate with you, I have to remind myself of my motto: Better you than me!

:)
 
For new reader, however, it is a serious barrier. You probably know that :)

Not much of one, however. A new reader isn't hindered in the least from reading. If they want to comment all they have to do is create an account, which takes only a few minutes to do.
 
Might as well register then.
 
Sigh. I understand why you have to do this... It just sucks because it means I can't post while at work or at another computer :(
 
Your blog your rules is pretty much all I have to say about this.
Less spam is always nice too :)
 
For those of us who own our posts by assigning a handle, a name, a standard to our posts and standing behind it - we appreciate this.

Anyone with something valid to stay that they believe in will have no problem logging in.
 
Getting an openId account is a good idea.

They're used in quite a few other places and have the benefit of only needing to log in once. And you only need to reember one password.
 
My blog is not nearly as big a blog as yours but i've gotten a TON of Japanese spam, all to one post over a year ago. It's very annoying, and i can't see how it thinks people will go there.
 
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