Blogspam — the latest form of pollution

The News Group system — which was the glory of the early Internet — was undermined by spam and flaming. Blogging seemed to be a way of overcoming that, because Bloggers retained complete control of their space. But then (for the very best of reasons — to encourage conversation and discussion) some Bloggers started to allow readers to comment on their posts. You can guess what’s happened — Blogs are beginning to suffer from comment spamming. See this thoughtful posting on the problem by Simpson Garfinkel — plus some helpful comments from people who’ve been tackling the problem.