Someone is writing a story about comment spam… they asked me some questions, and as I normally do here are the answers to their questions:

> – Could you tell me more about the experience of dealing with a spam
> deluge, forcing you to shut down comments. When did this happen, how
> often did this happen?

It’s happen like twice in our two year history. Floods of spams come in, we shut down for a couple of hours and block the IPs/emails, flush out the trash, and the bastards go away.

It’s not a big deal.

> – Also, does spam affect the business of blogging in actual $$$. You
> mentioned that you have developed technology to combat spam, that
> doesn’t come free. Can you share anything in terms of economical,
> financial impact?

Zero financial impact. Comment spam is a non issue for us since we, unlike MoveableType, built Blogsmith (our blog software platform) with advanced comment spam protection.

As I mentioned, the only spam that can really get through our defenses are the ones that are hand rolled by a person, and we catch most of those.

> – Would you compare this blog spam and trackback spam to the world of
> e-mail, where spam fighting has become normal and also a normal expense?

It’s not a major expense.

You’re making it into this major problem. If you have the right software and you put in simple rules it’s not a major issue. The problem is the software makers, combined with blog owners, have not done a horrible good with their software. If you put in simple controls the problem goes away. Folks just don’t install the tools to block comment spam.