WTF? Do TrackBack spammers actually read my blog before spamming me? Just yesterday I was musing as to how TrackBack spammers always seem to slam me when there is nothing I can do about it... I'm on a plane... without internet... whatever. It's as if they wait for the most opportune moment and then strike. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but after what happened last night, now I'm not so sure. Within two hours of my last entry, I started getting TrackBack spams on a regular schedule. By the time I got to work early this morning so I could check my email, there were around 120 waiting for me to delete and blacklist...
The most disturbing thing about this is that all of these disgusting TrackBacks were actually listed on my blog for a period of time. The "no-follow" link tag is obviously NOT WORKING, because spammers are more determined than ever. Movable Type needs to add forced-moderation of all TrackBacks IMMEDIATELY. It won't stop spammers from attacking me, but at least I have the piece of mind of knowing that they won't show up on my blog. There is a plug-in available that's supposed to do this, but I couldn't get it to work properly... the solution needs to be integrated into the system, and Movable Type is who should be doing it. So what are they waiting for?!?
I love comments! However, all comments are moderated, and won't appear until approved. Are you an abusive troll with nothing to contribute? Don't bother. Selling something? Don't bother. Spam linking? Don't bother.
PLEASE NOTE: My comment-spam protection requires JavaScript... if you have it turned off or are using a mobile device without JavaScript, commenting won't work. Sorry.
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That’s one reason why I removed the Trackbacks. I’m perfectly OK with the fact that blogging takes time from me, but I don’t like to spend it on spam-cleaning.
This summer I’m definitely changing system from MT. Either Blog:CMS or WordPress – or I might even write one myself…
Check out the plugin MT-Moderate at http://www.mt-plugins.org/, which may help you there.
Alternately, renaming your comments and trackback scripts does help.
The nofollow plugin doesn’t stop spammers; it just prevents them from reaping any reward for their labours. Unless annoying you is their reward.
Just curious, but have you tried using the latest MT-Blacklist (or MT-Moderate and MT-DSBL) with your Movable Type installation? I use Blacklist alone and it catches all my comment and TrackBack spam, but all 3 would definitely solve the issue.
And Patrick, do you have any specific reasons MT doesn’t meet your needs? I’d love to pass them on to our product team so they can keep improving MT.
I am absolutely running MT-Blacklist, which is the only thing that keeps me sane while having a blog, but it doesn’t catch everything. Spammers add hundreds of domains every day, and Blacklist just can’t keep up with it all.
In desperation, I’ve tried MT-Moderate because I was told it would allow forced-moderation on TrackBacks, but I could not get it to work. It shows up as installed, but TrackBacks are allowed through anyway. I’m not really thrilled at the prospect of installing MT-DSBL, and remain hopeful that Movable Type will simply add an option to force moderation on TrackBacks as they’ve already done for comments… it seems the only real solution for those of us who would rather manually approve every trackback rather than having hard-core pornographic texts appear on our blog.
Otherwise, I’ll just have to do what so many other bloggers have done… turn off TrackBack entirely.