die spammers die!
My ongoing war with comment spam has been an exercise in despair.
Log IP address, delete comment spam.
Repeat a billion times.
Go on vacation or get really lazy, come back to parasitic spam fuckers all over the comments.
I originally found a helpful document here, documenting the problem and the state of efforts to eradicate or control it.
Through this article, I found MT-Blacklist, an ingenious piece of code that shifts the burden onto the spammer to find ways around the system by registering more domains. To paraphrase the author: what takes me seconds to add the linked spam sites to the blacklist means extra time and money for the spammer to register more domains to get around the system.
And that makes me very happy indeed.
There are problems with any blacklist, especially if one of my 3 semi-regular readers really really wants to link to penis enlargement or online poker. I figure that's a bridge I'll cross when I get to it.
Seems the software has already caught a spammer. Highly, highly satisfying.
(I'll probably check the blog tomorrow and find a spammer's electronic turd right on this post. But right now I'm basking in the glow of victory, however, temporary.)
Thanks to Doug for installing everything in the right locations.