New Tools for Fighting Spam

We hate spam as much as you do. Unfortunately big systems attract spammers, so TypePad is a target. Today we're releasing two new features to help reduce the amount of spam in TypePad-land.

1. Now you can Select All spam to delete with one click. This feature is now live for everyone. Log into your TypePad account, navigate to the Comments tab and try it out today. Any and all comments previously marked as spam can all be deleted with one click. Spam be gone!
2. We've also taken a big step to reduce the number of spam blogs (a/k/a "splogs")  you see in TypePad by requiring Facebook Connect on all new registrations for free TypePad Micro blogs. We believe this will greatly reduce the number of splogs in the system and should immediately reduce the number of new splog followers many folks are seeing

In addition to these two features, we're working on two additional items for release.

1. 'Block this Follower' will enable bloggers to prevent other TypePad users from following them using TypePad's Follow feature. We realize that this is an issue for many of you and are working hard to get this feature out the door.
2. We're also hard at work cleaning up the splogs that are already in the system. We're doing this as carefully as possible to ensure that legitimate blogs and accounts aren't affected. Over the coming weeks you should see the fruits of this labor.

We hope and trust these features will prevent spam from infiltrating TypePad and give our bloggers the tools to elimate any unwanted comments or followers. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts below in the comments (we know you will :)

Comments

[Kiril Kundurazieff]

That's all well, and good, and thanks, I'll look forward to testing as needed, but now how about doing something about the Trackback Spam count?

I hate that I have to see that I've to 20, 30, 50,000 unpublished spam trackbacks,, even though I know they are unpublished, and would have to take the next 20 years of my life to return to Zero. ;-D

[Agnes]

This is great -- thanks!

[Account Deleted]

Sharing nice tools

[Ian Stewart]

I hope cleaning up the splogs means getting rid of the mass of them cluttering up my dashboard. A maddening situation.

[Account Deleted]

Darn ;-) That's back to the drawing board for me now - just having completed a little guide on how to create a Typepad mini-blog.

Oh well, the change is for a good cause, but Facebook would not have been my first choice (it forces those looking for a simple web presence to create a Facebook account too - and not everyone is charmed by this Social Media "giant")

[Account Deleted]

Thanks for listening to us. Those splogs are very annoying.

[Patrick Tobin]

Win this race..!!

[Colin Richardson]

I confess I'm confused. You wrote a couple of days ago that you have deleted 400 spam accounts...well, it made not an iota of difference to my list of spurious 'followers', which continues to increase..the most recent being just one hour ago. You also mention an error code 404 that should appear when clicking on their profile. Well, that isn't happening either!
Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't understand why there can't be a simple 'delete/block' option...e.g. similar to the email blocking system. I'm quite happy just to delete the unwanted folloers as fast as they arrive. My frustration stems from not being able to do anything to get rid of my unwelcome passenger 'followers'!

[Joan]

I'm with Colin on this one - none of the current changes have made a dent in my "followers".

I liken this situation as having strangers setting up shop on your property and the property owner having no way to stop or prevent it.

Is Typepad's real focus in growing the FREE Micro Blogs and not taking care of the longtime customers?

There are plenty of social media outlets elsewhere, some of us would like to see Typepad protect our privacy and integrity.

[Kofla Olivieri]

I agree, I wish I could delete those "splog" followers cluttering my dashboard. I am looking forward to that "block followers" tool.

[Cookie!]

Jeff, spam HAS infiltrated Typepad. Along with the sploggers.

Colin, I agree with you.

Very few of the sploggers following me have had their accounts removed. The ones that have now show as a 404 when you visit their profile. However, they are still showing as actively following me and, therefore, continue to make me look bad.

I would hate to be using Typepad for a business blog and be dealing with this mess.

Giving us the option to control who follows us would be a wonderful and seemingly simple thing to do. Or shut down the Follow Me option until the bugs can be worked out. I do not see using Facebook as an answer seeing as how simple it is to lie to Facebook about who you are. Never mind, how many of us do not use Facebook at all.

Feels a bit like trying to push back the tide with a broom, no?

[cupcakefiberco]

I am afraid to promote my business Typepad blog due to this issue and am weighing my options for parking my domain elsewhere.

I thought that SAY Media was trying to grow and assist the small business portion of Typepad. Apparently they were too busy reblogging content to notice this explosion of sbloggers and to realize how much this would bother a person who is protective of their reputation and associations.

[Cookie!]

Less than 10 minutes after posting this comment, I had yet another splogger following me.

[Michael Leo]

Hi Joan,

We absolutely hear you and are working on it. What you are mentioning (change in existing Followers) is something that you'll not see until next week and beyond. Jeff mentioned them as the second set of items in the post above, but to summarize...

Next week: you will see the ability to Block a follower, which means they will no longer show up on your follower list (in addition to not being able to comment on your posts). This is the way that you can jump in and take control over your follower list.

Future weeks: we are working to clear out the biggest offending spam accounts that remain. This may or may not remove followers from your list (it depends if you were being followed by accounts that were removed).

As always, we really appreciate the feedback. I hope this helps to clarify things but if not, let me know!

Best,
Michael

[Joan]

I appreciate your reply and I know that you are new here, but please remember that this has looong been an issue:

http://getsatisfaction.com/saymedia/topics/how_to_block_your_followers

and it has been shrugged off by TPTB for a long time.

Also, some of us went through the awful time in Fall 2009 when our comment reply system was re-coded without warning and we had to fight publicly to get a "fix".

We still don't love the "fix".

I still get prickly when I think that I will have to watch my followers list in the future and manually block the sploggers - there is barely enough time in the day!

I have two Typepad accounts - one that is used for my small business and I never saw the value of the Micro Blog platform when it was rolled out. It has added nothing to my communities - it has only created problems.

I parked my business domain at Typepad because with starting a new business, I did not want to take the time to learn a new platform. I have since found that this issue has kept me from fully utilizing this second site because I would not want to expose my customers to the sbloggers, nor do I have time to babysit the site.

However, I did really enjoy deleting nearly 4000 spam comments from their folder yesterday so I'm going to keep my hopes up for the coming week.

[Angie]

I am looking forward to the availability of and using an effective tool to block followers. The number of sbloggers following me continues to grow--even one is not acceptable.

[LnxWalt]

I really don't think Facebook Connect is going to prevent spam bloggers. You really need to go back and take a look at why sploggers are here. Are they seeking to divert people from here to some site? Are they here to build search ranking? Are they here to hawk their wares directly on Typepad?

Your strategy must take away the reward for most of the spammers. FC isn't going to help, being that Facebook's constant notifications about games that your "friends" are playing are little more than spam themselves.