Change to Comment Security

I have changed the comment security on this blog so that it requires authentication.

The reason for this is SPAM, but not the usual blog comment SPAM. Nik posted a comment and put in his email address because it was required, but he didn’t put in a web address. In this circumstance it turns out that TypePad displays the commenter’s details with a link to their email address. After this Nik noticed a significant increase in the SPAM he received, not surprisingly.

So I’ve changed the security so this won’t happen in the future and to protect you all. it means you need a TypeKey account but they are free it’s just a bit more hassle. I’ve also removed Nik’s comment so that the email link isn’t there – and not because I was offended by his comment .

I could have gone the other way and not required an email address but that wouldn’t have actually fixed the problem and I didn’t figure that reducing the security was the right way to go .

Six Apart are supposed to be changing things in this arena so it may all change again in the future.