Blog DNS and Comment Spam!

Recently https://blogs.msdn.com was upgraded to a new version of Community Server, and for some reason, the comment spam went through the roof. I hate comment spam, and my first reaction was to look for some way to thwart the spammers. I poked around the CS admin screen, looking for some kind of reverse turing test switch, to challenge the bots with the good ole mungy letters, but to no avail. The only options available were:

1) Turn on comments moderation and sift through millions of emails a day, looking for real feedback

2) Allow all comments including spam

3) Turn off comments all together

I decided against 1, because I can’t stand email, let alone comment spam moderation email. Option 2 didn’t seem much sense as real feedback seems to have little use if others can’t find it or maintain the thread of conversation amongst all the Viagra spam. So unfortunately I ended up on Option 3. It’s not ideal, but it’s pretty much all I have at the moment.

So this got me thinking, I might set up a new blog using a better engine, something like DasBlog or Daz’s SUB. But then what would happen to all my friends who read my blog or aggregate it? They would have to re-tune their RSS aggregators, and change their links to my blog from theirs, etc.

So then I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if there was some kind of global directory for my blog, kind of like a Blog DNS. I could register my identity (for example David Lemphers: Microsoft or David Lemphers: Personal), then point that entry to my current URL. When I change from one blog engine to another, I simply change my pointer, but all my readers RSS entries are the same and all the web links are still complete.

As I’m quite a technology mushroom, I more than half expect this kind of technology to be available somewhere, so if anyone has seen something like this before, please let me know, I reckon it would rock!

Oh, and btw, DIE COMMENT SPAMMERS!!! DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH!!