After having seen at least 12 spam comments added in the last couple of days I finally decided to do something about it. As it’s a fairly widespread problem, there are plenty of pages explaining what to do about it. Some of them are easy to implement but easy for spammers to get around them if they put their minds to it. Others are similarly easy to implement (because someone else has done all the hard work) but would provide a bit more protection.

I opted for the simple to do and only minimal protection as I’m sure you don’t want to have to read strange codes off an image before posting a comment, or jump through the many other hoops there are available.
The first category includes things like:
– rename the mt-comments.cgi file to something else and change all references within templates and mt.cfg
– change the field name for the POST button
– make it so that people have to preview the post before posting it (i.e there’s only a POST button on the Preview comment page.
I’ve only implemented the first two so far, the third one will happen if I continue to get comment spams.
Relevant links:
The Snake Farm.com
90% Crud
A Reporter’s Life
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens…