molly.com

Saturday 20 March 2004

auto-close feature for weblog comment systems

Any thoughts on some solutions that would automatically close weblog comments in weblog software such as movable type after a custom-defined period of time?

Filed under:   general
Posted by:   site admin | 08:04 | Comments (61)

Comments (61)

  1. Jay Allen says Saturday 20 March 2004 at 08:21

    There is in fact a hack somewhere out there on the internet for MT that will do precisely that. Google, google, google.

    Of course, I have always been against such measures as it kills still productive discussions like this one.

    When I wrote that, I had no idea of it’s potential. One never does.

  2. Molly says Saturday 20 March 2004 at 08:41

    Jay, Wow, thanks. It was so great meeting you and I love your work. I agree that comment filtering has its cons but the comment spammers have hit me so hard in the past few days I’m in need of quick relief!

  3. Porter says Saturday 20 March 2004 at 08:49

    Yeah… It would be a fairly easy thing to hack — either into the publishing process or as an external cron job — but I’m with Jay on this one. I don’t think you should close an entry just because it’s old.

  4. Jay Allen says Saturday 20 March 2004 at 08:57

    Molly, you’re using MT-Blacklist, aren’t you?

    Anyway, I was lazy and hungry before. Now I’ve eaten and I’m better.

    * Google: Closing comments
    * Close comments plugin
    * David Raynes’ close comments hack
    * Jeremy Zawodny Auto-close script

    Needless to say I haven’t used any of them.

    It was really great meeting you as well Molly. 🙂

  5. Molly says Saturday 20 March 2004 at 09:09

    Yes, I’m using mt-blacklist and it’s awesome.

    Philosophically, I don’t want to ever terminate a conversation.

    Practically, I hate spam.

  6. Jay Allen says Saturday 20 March 2004 at 10:11

    And even with Blacklist, you’re having that much of a problem? Are you staying updated? Are you getting comment notification emails for one-click despamming? Are you really running 1.61-beta? (There are some nice features in the latest version, if you have the latest MT)

  7. Keith Burgin says Sunday 21 March 2004 at 02:20

    I get that damned spam on my comments too. And it’s not always on old topics.

    I say we nuke the whole damn bunch of these guys and put out the fire with a rake.

  8. Molly says Sunday 21 March 2004 at 07:12

    Yes, I stay very updated re blacklist. Just for everyone’s info – I installed the mt-blacklist beta this morning, so let’s see if that helps . . . also checked into some of the comment closing suggestions but after reading the dissent here I figure I’ll just wait and see how well the beta upgrade works.

    Maybe I was just down because I’d been away for a few days and came back to SO much spam that had gotten through.

  9. Yvonne Adams says Sunday 21 March 2004 at 09:57

    I think it was just the past few days while you were in Austin. MT-Blacklist works well, and there’s an RSS feed (if you use a reader) that helps.

    When I got back from Austin, I just imported the text file from the site to make adding the additions easier.

    Of course, I don’t have near the traffic you do, but I do still get spam. The one-click despamming from email is a huge help!

  10. Davey Jones says Sunday 21 March 2004 at 02:21

    It’s a shame that spam scripters create so much grief for everyone. I had a look at the MT-Blacklist page. It seems like a useful tool.

    The following would also work:

    1. Add an image hash to the comment post form. There are plenty of examples of this sort of implementation out there, such as those with various forum registrations (vbulletin, etc.). The MT submit form would be fairly easy to modify with an image hash and matching ‘security code’ entry field. The obvious down-side to this is that it requires a slight modification of the comment form and minimal additional user input, but hopefully that is not too difficult. MT should include something like this by default, IMO.

    2. Make sure you record the IP of all posters. Then, it’s a simple sql query to eliminate all spam with the associated IP (specific or range), if some idiot spammer does happen to get through. IP search and destroy is much quicker and more accurate than regular expression matching, but also not without its occasional issues of punishing the innocent. As a potential bonus, you could have a script that automatically updates an htaccess file for the site or db submit checker with the blocked IP.

    3. Require stronger user registration/authentication associated with posts. If you had a user database and required login to post, it would be a simple matter to select and delete all posts from a particular user. Presumably, spammers aren’t showing up to grace you with their intellectual abilities. 😉

    There are plenty of other ways to block or throttle access, but the above would be some of the most effective. I realize that these suggestions are not necessarily a one-click fix, but maybe they are useful…

    Good luck with the spammers…

  11. TjL says Sunday 21 March 2004 at 05:08

    MT3.0 is going to have registration for comments.

    http://www.typekey.com/

    I plan to use it. Hopefully others will as well.

    I suspect few spammers will bother to register, just like they don’t subscribe to mailing lists to spam them, but openly spam lists which don’t require membership to post.

  12. Dunstan says Monday 22 March 2004 at 05:39

    Hey mol – if I were you I’d look out for some code that doesn’t _close_ comments after a certain period of time, but which forces comments to be _moderated_ after a certain period of time.

    That’s what I use, and it works a treat, allowing people coming late to the party to still have their say, and letting me have the option of killing spam at an admin level, before it ever reaches the public site.

    On my site it’s achieved in one line of code, so I’m sure there must be a simple MT plugin out there.

  13. James Craig says Monday 22 March 2004 at 10:32

    What if old posts automatically switched to moderated posting, instead of closed posting?

  14. Davezilla says Tuesday 23 March 2004 at 11:48

    I like the idea of automatically closing comments. I have some posts with over 500 comments that strain my server every time someone opens them to add more.

  15. Geof says Tuesday 23 March 2004 at 12:19

    What amuses me is that Greymatter had the option to close comments to posts that weren’t on the front page back in 2000 [or whenever Noah released it]. I’m amazed that the functionality ever *left* logware.

    Seems like a simple bit to flip; if you’re interested in keeping the conversation, replace the comment form with a contact form that dumps to email.

  16. Sian says Thursday 1 April 2004 at 08:59

    I’m sure there’s a plugin for such a solution, have you tried the Tips and Tricks section in the MT Forum? I won’t be at all suprised that such a feature will be automatically included in MT 3.0.

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  46. Madonna says Monday 11 December 2006 at 13:52

    I am an old blogger.
    Seems like a simple bit to flip; if you’re interested in keeping the conversation, replace the comment form with a contact form that dumps to email.
    Merry Christmas Molly

  47. darmowe mp3 says Monday 30 April 2007 at 03:46

    I like the idea of automatically closing comments. I have some posts with over 500 comments that strain my server every time someone opens them to add more.

  48. smieszne filmy says Monday 30 April 2007 at 03:46

    I plan to use it. Hopefully others will as well.

  49. bwin says Monday 30 April 2007 at 04:48

    I get that damned spam on my comments too. And it’s not always on old topics.

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