Code Away

Well, it’s getting a bit old. Everyone around seems to have thanked Akismet long back. So this isn’t really necessary. In fact, its redundant.

Yet, it’s never too late to thank anyone. (Adapted from V for Vendetta: It’s never too late to apologize)

Akismet has shown how we do not always require captchas to curb bot-generated random spam. But it is not ideal for big websites, mainly because

• Its a program after all. There’s every chance that it can make mistakes.
• Genuine comments suppressed by Akismet are not that bad for a website. But spam comments for enlarging body parts to impress her, which pass through Akismet and shine with a glow right below an article don’t look good at all.
• There’s that tiny increase on server load everytime a comment has to be analyzed by Akismet. And if this hardly-visited and never-linked blog (as of today) has fought with 1000 spam comments, we all can imagine what the battle will be for a website which gets “slashdotted” or “dugg” every few seconds.

• Captchas are irritating.
• Captchas are irritating.
• Captchas are irritating.

That’s three good reasons right there, the last one being most important . While I have enough server power, I will try to minimise the hassle of looking through bleak bent text with a mashed grid or circles or airspray.