So back in April 2005 I implemented TypeKey user authentication on my various Movable Type blogs here to help combat comment spam — folks (and bots) entering in comments with links to commercial web sites (usually unsavory ones touting games of chance and medications, not to mention pr0n). It’s actually been very successful — most comment spammers get blocked at the get-go, such that I’ve gotten only a literal half-dozen or so
comment spams in that year and a half.
Alas, TypeKey is occasionally cranky (slow, or even non–responsive, not to mention not happy in IE with cross-domain scripting), and some folks dislike having to register in that fashion. So back
in August I implemented it on all my MT blogs except this, my main one. TinyTuring is sort of a simplified CAPTCHA — at the bottom of the comment form is a little line that says something like “Zap comment spam by entering the first letter of this sentence,” prompting you to enter a “Z.” There are, of course, 25 other options. It’s easy, it’s simple to implement (assuming your templates
are in any sort of decent shape), and it’s even usable by the visually impaired. And it’s worked pretty solidly on my blogs and on BD’s.
I’ve finally gotten around to implementing it here on DDtB (since my templates are not in a decent shape). I still am still supporting TypeKey (and there are certain spam rating advantages to using it, not to mention convenience of single-sign-on), but regardless of whether you sign in to TypeKey, you will need to enter in that little TinyTuring letter at the bottom of the comment in order for it to get posted.
(There is still a glitch with the Preview screen for comments that isn’t allowing posts directly from there. That affects, I think, a small population here, but just FYI.)
I’ll be watching to see if comment spam starts back being a problem — 99.999% of spammers are bots, but someone can manually work around TinyTuring with no difficulty. If I end up having to do a lot of spam clean-up, I’ll be dropping TT again for TK. But let’s see if this makes life here a bit easier on all y’all.
Let me know.