I am grateful to all of you who wrote me earlier today when my site was, temporarily, loaded with links to porn sites. It happens more often than you'd think. A large part of my job as webmaster is purging this dreck.
What you saw was the result of 'comment spamming.' It's a method for illicit websites to add value by using my 'status' with Google, Yahoo! and others.
There is some rudimentary protection installed on this web server. A program call MT-Blacklist looks at every comment entered, checking what you type against an ever increasing list of words and urls. Currently, there are 1855 forbidden entries. That's crazy!
Sometimes the blacklist is too broad, keeping you from entering totally innocent comments. Other times obvious garbage is missed. Fighting comment spam is tough because the spammers are willing to blindly throw hundreds and hundreds of links with the thought a few will stick.
Anyway, today's problems are gone and I apologize if you were treated to words or concepts you found offensive. There are ways to stop the problem, but I don't want to inhibit the conversation.
"There are ways to stop the problem, but I don't want to inhibit the conversation."
My buddy added a 'CAPTCHA' to his site without too much difficulty - that stopped the spam entirely - and it takes just a few extra seconds for the commenter. And now they have CAPTCHA's that help in digitizing old books - so it's win-win.
CAPTCHA is what I'm seeing more and more of as well. One blog I frequent just asks posters "Is ice hot or cold?", then the correct response allows the poster to submit. I'm guessing though, Geoff, that you're probably reluctant to add that module to this version of movable type because of past problems you've had. Besides, yesterday is one of the 1st times I've actually seen that much spam here, so whatever you're doing seems to work for you.