TECHNICAL QUESTIONS (FOR ABE OR ANYONE ELSE)
Thu. March 25, 2004Categories: Abstract Dynamics
Now, like Matt and Robin, I’m becoming besieged by spam in my comments boxes. It seems to target posts of a few weeks back (especially Cafe Culture and Comedy/ Drama). Does anyone know how to turn comments off particular posts in movable type? Also, how does one configure movable type so that it sends an email alert every time a comment arrives?
Edit the relevant entry, and under Allow Comments select closed.
In addition, you could block the spammer’s IP address (Weblog Configuration > IP Banning).
Email alerts are handled by Weblog Configuration > Preferences > Comment Configuration > Email new comments
Alternatively, contact your friendly neighbourhood Superuser!
As I’ve just discovered, there are good reason _not_ to turn off comments on old posts! IP blocking seems to work, I think you can ban a whole span of IP addresses (ie take the first three numbers of the IP address). But it’s an ongoing battle…
I just turned on the email comments feature.
I talked to a couple Movable Type people last week and they claim that comment spam is their number one priority. Some sort of fix is due this spring. I’ll definitely be installing it.
Until then I’ve just been closing the threads that the spammers hit, fucking annoying…
desperate measures, Whoever has access to the database, can do a query like
delete from mt_comments where comment_text like ‘%levitra%’
or whatever – swats them all in one go and saves a lot of time in MT admin.
I wonder if the amount of spam relates to the global popularity of a particular post – at least then you could salvage some egotistical satisfaction out of the process 🙂
I wonder if the amount of spam relates to the global popularity of a particular post I hope so cuz I just deleted 33 (count em) comments from one post….
Thanks for turning on the email alert, Abe…
probably all from disgruntled Pret franchisees !
yeah the spam is designed to boost the linked to site’s ranking in google. the higher google ranks a post, the more valuable a link in the comments becomes. Quite a fucked economy of attention.
I have access to the database, but no clue how to dow what undercurrent proscribes…
don’t want to fill up mark’s comments box with technical boremongering but in short – if you have phpmyadmin installed (http://www.phpmyadmin.net/) then you can use this to execute the mysql command by selecting the ‘MT’ database (click on the SQL tab and enter the command as above, with appropriate keyword).
I wonder, has anyone ever met anyone who bought anything (antidepressants, penis enlargers or a mortgage) as a result of spam?
weirdly ive found spam gloms on posts with obscene language in it! this is true!
if you can get abe to shut down the old comments boxes that helps, these people are VERY slow. they never get to the latest comments.
robins software sounds interesting….
one important tip, always delete comments using the “tick box delete” method otherwise the text from the to-be-deleted comment gets rebuilt in your post!!!