War on spam

I've been fighting a war against spammers on this blog the last couple weeks, and I've been losing big time. Unfortunately, that means it's time to turn on word verification. I have traditionally kept it easy to post here on EMP, even letting anonymous users comment, but now the spammers have left me with no choice but to mandate word verification (CAPTCHAs) and that users be logged in. This sucks and I wish I didn't have to do it, but I've been getting hundreds of spam comments every day and that cannot be good for your experience, my sanity or this blog's page rank.

Let me know if you think this new policy really sucks. Unfortunately, you'll have to log in to Blogger/Google and pass a little visual test to do it.

12/18 Update: Okay, the spammers just made me look like a fool by spamming this very post. The word verification thing seems not to have affected them at all. It looks like I will have to crank up things even further. For the time being, comments are subject to moderation before they get posted. I will post your comment -- no matter how stupid and offensive -- as long as it's not fucking spam.

I guess I should take it as a compliment that they feel this blog is worth targeting so intensely, but it's really messing up the comment sections. I'm so tired of ugg boots and ed hardy spamming my blog! Talk about the wrong blog to peddle your douchey wares... Fuck off and die in a fire, spammers!!

The rest of you: Can you still post comments? Feel free to leave a test post and let me know if the hoops you have to jump through (log in, CAPTCHAS, moderation) are too onerous. I know it's a pain and I'm sorry, but it seems to be necessary at this point. I will try to stay on top of things and approve legit comments quickly.