You mentioned bloggers pruning their comments to make themselves look better … I don’t really understand this. I don’t doubt that it happens; it just doesn’t seem to be in anybody’s best interest. I delete everything from my blog that’s obvious spam, and I get my share. If there’s doubt, I tend to look into things – the site somebody signed with, the history of their posting, etc. And then make up my mind after some thought. Luckily, I don’t get so many in-between comments, so that’s actually feasible.

Real spam – the kind that everybody in the world will agree is spam – is a huge turn off. It looks unprofessional, and I don’t doubt it chases the users away. And it looks unprofessional. The problem is, so much of it isn’t quite as obvious. You could take a few dozen PhDs and not get a consensus. Which makes the job of the who who writes Akismet code pretty difficult…

Forrest’s last blog post..God Beams