Just deleted a bunch of spam created by bots from several comments. Movable Type (the software that runs the News Bits) really needs to release a way to deal with this. I'd like them to go the paypal route, displaying text as an image that a human has to type in, but it looks like the next version of MT won't have that. Instead, that version will have a "registered users only" function, which is not what I want. Already MT asks for your e-mail address and URL (what it does with the URL, I have no idea). Asking people to register before using a comment form is annoying. Want to provide a comment? Please jump through these hurdles first!
One thing I've wanted to do is find a way to make those e-mail address and URL fields optional. I might just hack into the code and do a tweak or two if I get some free time.
Oh, and the other thing that would be cool is if I could turn off commenting for news bits that are over two weeks old. But I don't see how to easily do that in MT's interface without going through every single post. I guess that's what I'll have to do.
Posted at February 24, 2004 09:02 AM
Now, now, Mister Foe Paws, don't you know what Google is for? If you want a Movable Type fix, the odds are pretty high that someone out there has done it. To turn off comments on older entries, look at this: http://www.rayners.org/2003/12/27/closing_comments_on_old_entries.php Or there's this, but it looks like it has its limitations (i.e., must have a perl folder): http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000323.html Or maybe this? http://speed.insane.com/archives/2004/01/13/automatically_closing_old_mt_entries.php
As for the anonymous comments, that's simple. In Weblog Config, select Preferences, then Comment Configuration. Check the box marked "Allow anonymous comments?"
Posted by: Layla at February 24, 2004 10:05 AMUnfortunately, I found out about all this spam as I was running out the door this morning...
I like that MTSQL solution to the auto-close old entries. I'll be getting that when I get back to the home computer this evening. Thanks!
25 points to Gryffindor.
Posted by: cartoonlad at February 24, 2004 10:36 AMLong, long week. Just got hit by another blast o'spam. I've got to convert this over to a SQL db in order to do any of the above suggestions.
Posted by: cartoonlad at March 5, 2004 07:55 AM