Odd.
So, 24 hours after implementing TypeKey on all the blogs here (and deleting some old ones), the number of spam hits has plateaued …
… but not vanished. I’m still seeing, in the MT-BL log, a smattering of “MT-Blacklist comment denial on ‘Margie’s Kitchen’.” Are these (bogus e-mails of the “grey_goose/absinth” variety) actually registered in TypeKey? Or is there another way to access MT comments that gets past the TypeKey restriction?
Not a problem, and wildly less in number than before, but still … worrisome.
UPDATE: Aha! Jeez, what was I thinking when I set up Margie’s blog. Dang thing still used pop-up windows for comments, thus bypassing all the carefully crafted TypeKey-locked-down stuff. I think. Anyway, that’s where all the blacklist hits were hitting. I’ve fixed that, and, hopefully, that should all go away now …
Okay, that didn’t actually solve the problem. Reduced it some.
Still seeing comments showing up that MT-BL says it’s sending to moderation (and which never then appear in the comments for the post). similar to this MT-BL forum post.
Which made me realize that I still had the Comment Listing Template (for pop-up comment windows) active. Which meant that folks/bots could comment through that way, even if the comment wouldn’t actually process. Aha.
Blanking those templates out for my blog and Margie’s. Let’s see if that helps. (Very few are coming through on my blog, because I haven’t used that technique in ages. Margie’s blog was all set up that way until just recently, so that’s how spambots would know to try it.)
They (the sucka$$ spammers) know the name of the MT comment script, unless you’ve changed it, they’re just hammering away directly at that script. Curse them all.
Well, yeah, that goes without saying (all of it). But there does seem to be a distinct difference that going with the TypeKey stuff has made (the number of both moderated and blocked spam reported by MT-BL has nearly plateaued — it’s the “nearly” part I’m hammering right now), so closing up the “Comment Listing Template” would, I’d think, have some impact.
I hope.
Phooey. I couldn’t figure out what’s horsed up with Typekey.
Pasted the token, check.
Did all the stuff recomended by Learning Moveable Type and Anzi Design, check – (which means moved comments inline in the Individual Entry archive, fixed up the new comment templates, and so on. Check.
Checked the time/datestamp on the host server, check.
The link to Typekey still didn’t show up. Just this moment, my in-house geek found some Typekey-related fields in the source code of the comment configuration screen. Commented out. Huh? Uncheck.
So he removed the commented-out stuff, and I added my username and the token when the fields magically appeared. And rebuilt, and it’s still not working. Something’s still wrong with my template, I think. Check.
Woot! Habemus commentum! My dear geek has figured it out. It was “bad Javascript” in the template. Something about “commas where there should have been plus signs.”
To be honest, have had no problems (not of my own making) with the TypeKey code. I pulled the default template stuff in at the appropriate time and then tweaked it to what I needed. That said, I know that’s been a major hiccup that some folks have had.
Well, that didn’t eliminate the problem. But, as things currently stand, I can bear up to a dozen faux forced moderation/blocked messages a day. And there’s evidently a new release of MT-BL on the way that might tie into the MT API better to avoid this sort of thing.