Yes, those could be better. And I don’t need to update them. She can have her own programmer do them, if she wants to put in some more time and energy on the site. It just probably not worth that time and energy at this point. As I also keep saying, she was kind of at a tipping point with it.

I’m kind of begging at this point. I don’t need any further comments about technological fixes that could be put in place. That’s why I’m going to close them now. I know that cold. That’s not what this post was about.

We discuss the tech fixes to death. Understood. People should be prepared for spam, and they should be prepared to improve their defenses constantly. I. Get. That. I agree with that.

Anyone who was about to comment on that point, STOP. Just stop for a second. Actually go back and READ what’s been discussed, clear your mind of your instant knee-jerk response.

What I’m saying in this post is DESPITE the need for tech fixes, there’s also an attitude change that should happen out there. That people who are doing link spam should take a hard look at the havoc they generate. That those who know them ought to give them a hard time about their activities. That while we can put up barbed wire to protect property, and we just might have to in the tough area of community-driven content, that still doesn’t make link and comment spamming acceptable.

I have never said in this post that people should expect a unicorn and fairy world of no spam. I have simply tried to illustrate for the few link spammers out there who might actually have some emotions that they have a terrible impact out there.

Anyone who wants to disagree, tell you what. Next time someone you know dies, say your mother, a friend, a child, let’s see if putting up spam defenses would be a top priority in your minds if you do a blog post about them. Hey, if you’re at the funeral and it turns out there’s 70 Viagra spam links that show up on your post about the funeral when you get back — because you failed to apply yet another update to WordPress or someone manually decided it was worth the time to get through your supposedly perfect spam filters — then be sure to do your own post about how it was all your fault.

Alternatively, maybe we can find room for a little humanity and common decency along with preparing for the worst.

First of all, I want to commend you for all the wonderful things you’ve done for the SEO community.

But second, I’d like to suggest you have been a bad husband here. You could move Lorna to Wordpress and benefit from WP Spam Free (Akismet gets too many false positives and allows too many bot comments in which have to be scanned so we don’t use it) which shuts bots down cold. We’ve also recently published a Wordpress plugin Thoughtful Comments which is really useful on websites with hot discussions like political and SEO sites (i.e. WP Spam Free takes care of the bots and Thoughtful Comments takes care of the trolls).

Next with Wordpress she can go to only approved comments appear automatically.

If you’d like some help moving this site to Wordpress, we are the number one in the world. We also do Moveable Type to Wordpress. Why not add Drupal to Wordpress?

We’ll take care of you.

As Lorna’s husband and a top web personality, it’s your duty to protect her from the spammers. And protecting her doesn’t mean one time rescues. It means putting in structural fixes which will protect her site today and tomorrow.

Why should your website be a properly maintained Wordpress site and Lorna’s site an out-of-date Drupal installation?

PS. Cool to see you here Mikkel and IncrediBILL. Just like the old Threadwatch days. Made me wonder how Nick Wilson was doing. He’s in a virtual world.

http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2008/11/06/single-lawn-signs-conquer-the-american-landscape/

That page claims there’s at least $35 mil a year being made on those “dating in YOURTOWN” signs you see at intersections all over America. I’m surprised no one has tried to topple that empire yet…

-kpaul

That would be like buying a new car and claiming it was Danny’s fault he’s picking bugs out of his teeth because he didn’t install a windshield.

Cars some with windshields to protect passengers and software should come with anti-spam measures built into them to protect users thwart the scumbags.

The world’s not a rosy place where unicorns and rainbows have tea parties every single day. People are out there to make money online, and if there’s a easy way to do it, it will be done.

I hear you with “they should be ashamed” etc… As much as that’s true, do you really think it accomplishes anything (other than personal satisfaction) to say that when this same problem already exists (and has for a long time) in other contexts? Look at “sign spam” for example. Drive down the road, any road, within an urban or ex-urban area in the U.S. and you will see people’s garbage tacked up on telephone poles, stuck into the ground next to the road, etc… claiming you can lose weight, get out of your mortgage, etc… Some are even put up by “legitimate” businesses if you can call them that. Most, if not all are illegal under various state statutes. Yet they persist…

What if someone stuck signs in your front lawn while you were away and there was no way to find out who did it. Then they kept doing it… They only reason this doesn’t happen is because it’s too expensive for someone to do. That’s not the case on the Internet.

It’s all a tangential tragedy-of-the-commons and it won’t stop until there are strong laws unencumbered by lobbyists’ demands backed up with strong monetary-based enforcement. What do you think the chances of that happening are?