Stopping blog spam or Why I started to block Internet Explorer 6(vale.homelinux.net)

21 pointsby raganwaldvor 18 Jahren9 comments

vale.homelinux.net

Stopping blog spam or Why I started to block Internet Explorer 6

http://vale.homelinux.net/wordpress/2008/07/20/stopping-blog-spam-or-why-i-started-to-block-internet-explorer-6/

9 comments

BrandonMvor 18 Jahren

I think a lot of commenters are missing an important point of the article. The whole thing was the scientific process in a nutshell: he made an observation (most blog spam is ie6), made a couple hypotheses (most ie6 traffic is bots, blocking ie6 will significantly reduce spam), tested them out, and shared the results. He was even able to make a different, related conclusion (numbers for windows and ie6 browsing are inflated) based on his work.

Overall, I found the piece quite interesting. I think you will, too, if you read it not as a piece of advice but as a nicely-performed experiment.

kenvervor 18 Jahren

I think this is probably an example of using a hammer to crack a very annoying nut. If his usual users are all linux types anyway I suppose it probably isn't hurting much.

gscottvor 18 Jahren

Block x% of your visitors while the spammers just change there user_agent that is passed.

sh1mmervor 18 Jahren

Users Vs. You

Users win.

This is a horrible idea. The point of systems like Akismet, etc is to avoid doing horrible solutions like this which penalise users. His apology to IE6 users obviously means nothing to them, because they can't read it!

eruvor 18 Jahren

They see their own apology.

josefrescovor 18 Jahren

Good article, but the final % he uses for bot traffic is only an educated guess.

devilsenigmavor 18 Jahren

I'm using FF 3 and can't see this page. So much for user-agent sniffing.

Oompavor 18 Jahren

I have no problems, and I'm using Firefox 3.

flashgordonvor 18 Jahren

umm why is it blocking firefox 3.0 on linux??