Thinking of removing blog functionality

[sothis]

Also, it's unlikely that someone will have access to delete, as that could be abused in a scary way. Here, for example, pidj does have access to delete some things, but not permanently, only a 'soft delete' so there's still a record.

Blogs on the site don't have that option. If someone maliciously decided to delete real blogs, or if they just made a mistake and deleted one on accident, it's not really possible to recover it (technically we make backups of the entire site, but wading through a multi gig database backup for one piece of content would be insane)

[Drahken]

I find the blog to be a useful way to give out site info & answer FAQs, such as what certain tags mean, how much time a single episode counts for, why the life bar seems to jump oddly, etc. Beyond that I don't care much one way or the other.

Considering the afforementioned cost invested in creating it though, it'd be wasteful to just throw it all away. I would suggest 2 things to try before dumping it altogether;
1) Give someone else modding powers to delete spam blogs.
2) Make it so that you have to be a site member for at least {X} months before you can post a blog. Spammers aren't going to sign up, then come back a couple months later to actually do their spam.

You could also reduce the problem by adding a list of all known throwaway email sites to the block list, no legitimate member would need to use one. Of course, there are a slew of them out there, with more popping up constantly, and spammers could still sign up with other email sites. *shrug*

I don't know how difficult/expensive either of my suggestions would be to implement though, and while it'd be a waste to throw away all the time & money already invested in the blogs, sometimes it's better to cut your losses. *shrug*

[chii]

wouldn't adding a re-captcha help decrease the amount of spam blogs?

i kinda don't want to see this feature taken away for obvious reasons

[sothis]

They are not something many people read (lets say 2-3 people have read them) but it is a nice place where I can post my latest thoughts and similar.

^^this is the ultimate problem. people who write posts (especially the 'heres the games i played today' type ones - which i dont think yours are but just saying in general) would like somewhere to post them, but if they aren't read, it's a pretty big tradeoff to keep maintaining a feature just for that. as opposed to, say, better integrating the forum so there's all up more conversation, making the review features better as those are strongly used, etc.

a lot of the very little time i have goes into maintaining the section, so it may be a sacrifice that has to happen.

i'd argue that posts like this: Badly written anime - PinkyIvan's Blog - Anime-Planet

would fit very well here in the forum, as a new thread in 'general anime discussion', and would not only get way more views, but it also would generate discussion, thus improving the forum even more

[sothis]

You could also reduce the problem by adding a list of all known throwaway email sites to the block list

i'm talking yahoo.com, hotmail.com, gmail.com, etc. no way will i blacklist those.

recaptchas unfortunately don't help - bear in mind recaptcha is there to sign up at all, spammers have ways around it

[snivets]

For series that don't have reviews or recommendations posted, the next place I look is blogs, just to see if anyone has mentioned the anime. Sometimes, I find a person giving reasons why they dropped it or just giving a basic plot overview, so they definitely can be useful.

And, as much as I like my own blog and the work I've done there, I can understand that they're more of a hassle than they're probably worth, except in those few cases.

[PinkyIvan]

Well I posted that as a blog since I got the feeling that some anime I consider bad aren't allowed to be disliked in the forums (SOA for example) since I was being called a troll for not likeing it etc.

[Drahken]

I thought you meant true throwaway email addresses, the ones where your "acct" is created simply by virtue of using said address, then vanishes after 10 minutes.

What about the feasibility of applying a time limitation to blogging? ie, The being a member for {X} months thing? That would block spammers, without introducing the "why is he qualified to blog but I'm not" problem.

[sothis]

Originally Posted by PinkyIvan

Well I posted that as a blog since I got the feeling that some anime I consider bad aren't allowed to be disliked in the forums (SOA for example) since I was being called a troll for not likeing it etc.

disliking something is definitely allowed here - anyone who gets aggressive with someone will be warned by staff (and if forum/site integration moves forward, ill make sure to get a bunch of new mods to help balance the load). keep in mind most of the animosity with SAO is because of roricon's constant broken record statements about his opinion

[sothis]

Originally Posted by Drahken

I thought you meant true throwaway email addresses, the ones where your "acct" is created simply by virtue of using said address, then vanishes after 10 minutes.

What about the feasibility of applying a time limitation to blogging? ie, The being a member for {X} months thing? That would block spammers, without introducing the "why is he qualified to blog but I'm not" problem.

yeah, people have to validate their email address so all of them are 'real', but from big enough domains that they cant really be blocked.

i think by virtue of having the word 'blog' on the site, spammers will still come and auto register, which means wasted profiles. ultimately, these accts are usually smart enough to do things on timers, so i can see whoever's running these bot groups seeing the time limit, then just setting up a script to come back after x days.

the recent auto recs (which i seem to have shut down) were always on a timer, same time every day, automated # of recs, etc