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bulk option method of closing comments on old posts

  1. timethief
    Member

    I have been watching my spam closely and see that most of the spam comments I am moderating every day are coming in as phony baloney comments on old posts.

    I would like to see an option created whereby I could go to my "Manage" section where it says Last 15 Posts
    Search Posts…
    Browse Month…
    Choose month
    Show
    And there I would like to be able to select a month and have an option in addition to "edit" and "delete" options that already exist. That option would be the ability to "close comments" on all "marked" posts in a given month.

    Currently in order to do this I would have to edit each post individually and close comments manually on each one. That would be a huge undertaking as on my environmental blog I frequently post 6 or more posts in any given day.

    Having an option where I could simply select to close comments in bulk on on all "marked" posts in any given would be a boon to me and to other bloggers too. It would cut the amount of spam I get masquerading as comments on old posts down to a bare minimum.

    Will the staff please consider the possibility of creating such on option?

  2. drmike
    Member

    I can see how and why it would be used. I do hope that it would be optional like the snap plugin though as I for one would rather keep my comments open. Most of my traffic is on the older pages.

  3. timethief
    Member

    I do know that closing comments onold posts can be an effective way of cutting down on spam because I did this with one of my blogs and witnessed a dramatic decrease.

    And I anticipated that some people would not like my idea and, like yourself would like to keep comments on their older posts open. That's why I emphasized that what I was proposing if feasible would be optional.

  4. mark
    Support

    Someone has already sent in a feedback about this, and highlighted the fact that a plugin exists for a wp.org blog. My response was that spammers would simply move their target. The short-term effect may be to reduce spam but I really do think they would simply change their settings and batter the more recent posts.
    This isn't a no - the request was put on the 'features request' list.

  5. drmike
    Member

    Something else you may want to consider as well is that not everybody has read your blog from day one. I just found Matt's blog here on wp.com and left a comment on a post made months ago. It may be old to you but it's brand new to me.

  6. timethief
    Member

    Ahh ... gee whiz, I do believe that you're trying to talk me out it it. I have done this on a small blog that deals with wordpress blogging "how to" stuff. The bulk of the comments were spam and the legitimate ones were "thank yous". I admit it's always nice to hear a "thank you" but I didn't really create that blog with getting hits in mind.

    I won't be closing comments on my old posts on my much larger environmental blog that had over 100 categories and 500-600 posts. I begged along with others to have a bulk method of handling categories so I could re-group and reduce the categories to 25-30 but after months of waiting I gave up. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=1507&replies=5#post-43799

    I created two other smaller blogs, eliminated all categories in the large one breaking every link, then I exported the contents to the other two blogs. Then I deleted almost all duplicates (still working on that). Categorized the two smaller ones and now I'm currently re-categorizing the main blog, while fielding pages of spam. What a nightmare!

  7. timethief
    Member

    Thanks for your reply Mark. :)
    And yes I do appreciate that it would likely result in a focus on the more recent ones.

    Dang those spammer all the way to hell and back! May they all be cursed with incurable suppuriating face and butt boils.

  8. sunburntkamel
    Member

    mark-

    please stop parroting matt's "the spammers will just adjust their game" response. it does no good.

    the spammers can't come knocking on posts less than a week old. you know this. not yet. so change the behaviour now, and if they suddenly start scraping every feed on the internet, change the behaviour again, if and when they do.

    every solution does not need to be perfectly future proof. present functionality is better than future functionality. Don't pretend like this is an antibiotics and superviruses situation. spammers aren't going to stop suddenly if we keep plugging away at the same old methods. spammers will only stop when it becomes socially prohibitive to do so.

    until then, refusing to implement technological features on the basis that they may become irrelevant in the future will only make your solution meaningless, and won't help us fight our own spam.

  9. timethief
    Member

    @sunburntkamel
    WOW! I didn't know this:
    "the spammers can't come knocking on posts less than a week old. you know this. not yet."

    @Mark
    Please and thank you.

  10. sunburntkamel
    Member

    that's how long it takes for search engines to find and index your post. the spammers could, hypothetically, use something RSS based to find your post sooner, but that would require them to do the finding/indexing themselves (well, probably not the indexing)

  11. timethief
    Member

    @kamel
    Thanks for clarifying. What you say makes sense. w00t! I'm learning something new everyday. :)

  12. timethief
    Member

    In another thread here http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=7559&replies=27#post-50930 it seems possible that there may be opposition to my proposal stated in thread above based on a invalid argument that has no substance in fact.

    What I proposed is that an option be provided for bloggers to close old comments. I had no idea that this Akismet issue was in any way connected to what I proposed here http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=7528&replies=11#post-49708 If the option I proposed were introduced then those who want to "plumb old gold for stats" wouldn't have to use it. It would be an option that could be used or not at the discretion of each blogger. Hence any attempt to use the Akismet 30 day deletion issue here to oppose my option to close old comments proposal is patently a bogus argument.

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    I read that thread and I'm not seeing the opposition you're talking about. You're the only one who brought up this issue in that thread; they're different.

    People there don't like having Akismet automatically delete anything it thinks is spam that was added to an old post; they want it made optional, rather than mandatory. That's all.

  14. timethief
    Member

    Ahhh ... sometimes I'm as thick as a brick ... what they want can't be done drmike told them that.

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