A possible solution for everyone?
The problem has intensified in the past couple of weeks, but the good news is that as more people have been hit by comment spam, actual solutions are beginning to emerge.
Specifically, Jay Allen’s MT-BlackList is a blacklist-based solution to comment spam for Movable Type weblogs. It checks the comment fields (body, URL, author, etc) for URLs commonly found in spam comments, and rejects the comment if it looks like spam. The core plugin is set to be released today (Monday), but one of its neatest features-in-development is the ability for weblog systems to share blacklist data using XML-RPC. This provides the basis of a collaborative system similar to Razor, with the option for more management over the items in your own system’s blacklist.
We’re deeply committed to finding a way to combat spammers and we’re determined to do it on a core system level so that everyone can take advantage of spam prevention. We’re working on integrating comment spam blocking for MT and TypePad, and the great thing about Jay’s solution is that it could be the start of a distributed spam blocking network for comments, an implementation of which could be included in multiple tools. But, like email, there isn’t one simple solution that can be switched on and end spam completely. Hopefully we’re moving a step closer.
[Six Log]
This is great news! I’ve been looking into MT-Blacklist and thought exactly the same thing… that it could serve as a universal spam blocker. It’s clear from checking blogdex and daypop that we are all getting hit by the same porn comment spam and (once this can be implemented) we can knock them out together.