Swing State Project

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Friday, January 28, 2005

TypeKey and Comment Spam

Sadly, the tragedy of the commons has started to afflict blogdom. Much as your e-mail account is now likely awash with spam, so too are blogs with open comment systems. We've tried several different systems that are invisible to you, the readers, to reduce spam here. Unfortunately, they all require a lot of work and aren't all that effective.

Since I'm as tired of seeing pornogaphic spam infest this site as you are, we've decided to employ TypeKey on a full-time basis. TypeKey is very simple: You create an account and then use that to post comments on any Moveable Type-powered blog which uses TypeKey. It has the advantage of drastically cutting down on spam (because spammers would have to create traceable, shut-down-able accounts), and it also prevents your user name from getting spoofed.

The Swing State Project will now require that you be logged into a TypeKey account to post comments.

I know this change may be viewed as an added inconvenience to some, but based on my experience with blogs that had open systems and later switched to account-based systems, it will be a big improvement in both the short and long term. You can create a TypeKey account by following this link. (TypeKey's privacy policy is here, if you are curious.)

If you experience any problems, please let us know. And thanks for your patience during this transition period.

Posted at 03:03 PM in Site News | Technorati

Comments

That's one good thing about haloscan.

Posted by: Daniel at January 28, 2005 05:08 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment