SpamLookup is Awesome »
I have to say that I don't spend a lot of time on comments. I tend to read all those that come through, as I am notified of their existence. But I don't do much digging other than that.
Today I decided to take a look at my junked comments, and found nearly 200 of them from the middle of October to the middle of November. I would assume that this was a trial period, where they were trying to find an opening, and since none were published, it just never happened. But it was sure nice to see that they were handled and I had to do absolutely nothing to them!
In fact, I rarely even look at junked comments any more, as so few of them get through. Every once in a while I may take a look just to see how many are there, but it's so rare that I even get any junk comments, I don't even do that very often.
It's interesting how things evolve over time, and I suspect that there will come a day before too long where something will break through the current blockade that I have and I'll see some spam comments again. But for now, I'm just enjoying it immensely.
Comments (6)
I read that SpamLookup puts quite a load on the sever while moderating comments. Is there any way to know if that's the case?
Posted by Ted | December 29, 2005 9:00 AM
The potential problem with SpamLookup, or any such tool, is that it's going to have to run some process for every comment that is entered into your system. So if you're being flooded with thousands of comments, each involves at least some processor to examine.
That said, SpamLookup is much better than any of the other alternatives (including MT-Blacklist and even earlier versions of SpamLookup) in the way that it handles processing, so that it is likely the best weapon that is available at the moment.
There is no way that I know of that you can monitor the server load - you could ask your host to keep an eye on it, but unless you are undergoing a spam attack, I doubt that they would see even a momentary spike.
Posted by Chad Everett | December 29, 2005 10:25 AM
A couple of years ago on MT 2.14, I think, I came under a spam attack and my then host shut me down as it was taking his server to its knees. It sounds like the latest version of SpamLookup have resolve CPU utilization issues.
Posted by Ted | December 29, 2005 11:28 AM
One of the main causes of server load under a spam attack is the rebuilding of static pages. The beauty of SpamLookup is that it can easily identify spam and short-circuit any rebuilding that might normally occur from publishing comments.
On a related note, dynamic publishing holds up like a champ in the case of spam attacks although it's susceptible in a different way. If, for example, you have a massive traffic spike or very high sustained traffic. Caching definitely helps but each page view requires a number of database lookup which can cause load.
Anyway, after having run dynamic archives and MT 3.2 since August (and SpamLookup for a few months before that), I can tell you that my server load is far lower than the days when I had 4000 entries on my MT-Blacklist blacklist.
What's more, SpamLookup has been nearly 100% accurate and I know that because, like Chad pointed out, they go into the junk folder instead of being lost into the ether like in previous versions of MT. Anyone who is running a previous version of Movable Type for ANY reason really should get off the pot and upgrade. It's totally worth it.
Posted by Jay Allen | December 29, 2005 9:12 PM
Your entry prompted me to check my own junk folder. Amazing. And 100% accurate. I just want to say, I am still grateful for Jay Allen and MT-Blacklist leading the fight on comment spam.
Posted by Marie Carnes | December 30, 2005 11:49 AM
Thanks very much, Marie. I appreciate the sentiment.
If it's not entirely clear, I led the efforts behind Movable Type 3.2 as Product Manager and all of those hard lessons learned from Blacklist and Brad Choate's expertise and experience with SpamLookup got poured into the product and then massaged together by Ezra Cooper's composite scoring and anti-spam plugin framework. On top of that, Anil Dash and Walt Dickinson massaged it all together from a UI and usability standpoint to make it what it is today.
This was very much a team effort and one that continues even today. I'm glad to know that our efforts paid off for you and tens of thousands of others. We'll also make damn sure to keep on our toes with regards to spam in the future.
Posted by Jay Allen | December 30, 2005 8:49 PM