I hate spam!

[teaberryblue]

I just sent this message to LJ:

Hi there! I have been a loyal paid LJ user for nearly ten years and I have always been delighted with your service and the wonderful community you have supported- so delighted that I registered for a permanent account nearly four years ago.

However, I have noticed a severe and sharp uptick in spam in the past two or three months. Before the beginning of this year, I rarely received spam comments-- I would get only a few spam comments a year. In the past few months, I have suddenly started getting many spam comments per week, sometimes as many as four or five a day. It has forced me to apply comment screening for anonymous commenters on my journal, but even then, many of the spam comments come from registered users, and it has really forced me to spend a lot more time moderating my journal. This is extremely frustrating and is the first time I have felt that the quality of my LJ experience has been compromised enough that I would consider taking my business to another service. I would certainly hate to do that because LJ has been my home on the internet for many years.

I've heard from friends that they have been receiving a similar uptick in spam, so it is not just me. I wanted to know if you are already doing something to combat it, or if it is on your development schedule. Please, please look into adding a spam blocker to LJ, something like Akismet or Bad Behavior. I have a personal blog as well and my personal blog receives many more spam comments than LJ, but the Akismet spam blocker catches nearly all of them. I would even be happy if paid and permanent account members were given the ability to just use the Akismet spam blocker voluntarily on LJ.

Thanks very much!

Comments

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Some of it is your blogs are getting linked from all sorts of places, which will naturally increase spam.

Being familiar with what's in the open source code where spam is concerned, it's not very effective, and LJ's policy and standard for spamfighters IMO doesn't serve the needs of its users very well.

Over on DW we've implemented reCAPTCHA that you can turn on for anyone who is not logged in, and I can count on one hand the number of times that an actual spammer has bypassed it - and we banned them. Chat with me sometime if you like and I can tell you almost anything you want to know from my experience heading up anti-spam over there.

(I know you're not a fan of them. I have my complaints too, and if I understand right it may be some of the same issues. But my experience might be insightful if you're interested.)

[connie]

You can enable reCAPTCHA for comments on your LJ too, but some people might see it as too annoying for legitimate commenters to do that for all logged-in comments.

[liret.livejournal.com]

I am getting spam on a couple random posts from two years ago that definitely haven't been linked anywhere. It is very annoying.

[oneonthefence.livejournal.com]

I've been receiving a TON of Russian and Harry Potter-related spam, and shot a small note to LJ about this. Their reply was "we know that spam has been a problem recently and we are working to correct the issue." It was very bland and like a form letter, so, despite the fact I wrote a well-written and non-accusatory email, I hope you get a much more useful reply!

[eschatologies.livejournal.com]

Russian spam! I am drowning in it! Oh, and random spam comments on defunct HP role playing journals that I don't use any more.

Glad you sent an email that eloquently articulates the frustration. I've only been a paid member for four years but I agree about the need for more spam blocking.