Online Journalism Review writes Bloggers Declare War on Comment Spam, but Can They Win? I’m not sure what that has to do with journalism, but they talk to the same old people and read the same old sites and (not surprisingly) come to the same old tired conclusions. I’m trying to figure it out because I like everyone the article refers to and the article itself is well-written, but it feels very contrived. I think it may be because it draws a lot from blog material a year or more old, and selectively, like the writer had an agenda and Googled until there were enough quotes to fill the space. For example Mark Pilgrim’s blog is called “comment-free” when the entry on the front page for the last three weeks clearly has comments. Is it too much to ask to look at the front page of a blog you’re quoting? The article talks about Blogger redirecting URIs but not about Blogger’s registration aspect. It talks about Typekey but not the PATRIOT act. (Totally kidding there.)

You probably saw this coming from me, but most of all I think it’s silly that they don’t mention a single one of the dozens of other blogging systems that deal effectively with these issues every day. You can’t discuss the Movable Type spam epidemic without talking about people like Molly who tried everything out there including MT-Blacklist to no avail, then switched software and got on with their lives. There is a lot more to the story, but that’s been the conversation over the past year and a lot has come of it. The essence of blogging is communication and comments are here to stay, it’s just a matter of moderation.