Spam, spam, spam, spam …

While we’re on the subject of graphs, the one here shows MT Blacklist’s stats on spam at the various blogs I host here.

The big drop in the angle of increase in April is when I went to TypeKey authentication on comments. All of a sudden, a lot of stuff that would have gotten through to MTBL was never entering in the first place. I have had, since then, a single spam comment get through.

Of course, Trackback spam remains a problem (and the bulk of both the “Moderated” and “Blocked” items that have continued grow the graph), since TypeKey doesn’t address it. I end up cleaning Trackback stuff two or three times a week from here, which is annoying, but MTBL clearly is still doing most of the work. MT 3.2 is supposed to increase control over Trackback, which should seriously ease the problem here.

And why do I keep Trackback? Frankly, so that I can see things like what’s above — where Les or Scott or someone else has found a post here of value and interest and linked to it. That was the promise of Trackback, and, with a bit of effort, it remains, I think, viable.

And if the problem gets worse? There’s still the whole SpamLookup toolkit I haven’t deployed yet — but will, depending on what happens with 3.2.