Comment moderation is on

I’ve turned on comment moderation because the blog keeps getting hit with spam 2.0. This kind of spam is left by actual people, not computer programs, so the spam filter doesn’t catch most of it. They leave comments that sound real and refer to my posts, but they fill out the link field of the comment form with sites that are obviously spam sites. I’ve been filtering it out by hand for the last few weeks, but it keeps coming, so I’m turning on comment moderation until it subsides.

But, PastaQueen, why don’t you just use a captcha?

I didn’t want to use a captcha because 1) they’re annoying and 2) the spam is being left by humans who would be able to get past it. I suspect these spammers are third world citizens being paid a couple bucks a day to leave spam on blogs, sort of like what happens in that Cory Doctorow story Anda’s Game. Once their comments stop getting published, they’ll eventually go away. (I hope.)

So, if your comment is not published right [...]

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