Comment Control

One of the topics that keeps popping up during the BlogWalk meeting and the BlogTalk conference is people's insistence that weblogs may go the way of UseNet (i.e. they'll be spammed and trolled into oblivion) if no form of control is exerted over comments and trackbacks.

Specifically, Lee Bryant suggested introducing different "user levels" that would have different degrees of access to comments, and Mark Bernstein asked if comments and trackbacks weren't a substantially harmful factor.

a) But isn't that totally running counter to the idea of what weblogs are? My weblog here has only begun to feel like a real weblog once I got a regular influx of comments and trackbacks, when it turned from a mere broadcast into a broadcast that receives regular feedback, and I appreciate feedback from total strangers just as much as from regular readers or even personal friends.

b) And isn't it totrally dependent on what you are using weblog technology for? What annoys me in the weblog debate is how many people assume that weblogs are one specific thing for one specific use with one specific kind of topic. However, I think it's just another medium that can be put to a variety of uses. For my purpose it would be totally nonsensically to shgut out anyone except spammers.

So, getting rid of unrestricted comments and trackbacks can be just as harmful to weblogs as what the spammers are trying to do right now. I believe that open comments and trackbacks are vital, and whether they're rendered useless by spam or by being restructed doesn't really change the consequences for weblog readers and publishers.

And, as wikis are hailed so much, aren't they even more prone to defacement from spammers? Aren't they even less scaleable? Why should spammers stop short of defacing wikis, especially as it seems ever so much more easier to do it than with weblogs.

As I understand it, the defining thing about wikis is that everyone can contribute. Restricting access to wikis would kill the concept. Restricting access to weblog comments, for me, would kill the concept of weblogs.

Not that this would solve the spam problem. Can't we just try some sort of voodoo to get rid of them?

Update: Lee clarified that he didn't really want to get rid of unrestricted comments, but simply be able to add additional layers of security and/or restruction for purposes where they might be required. Which again reveals the strong context-dependency of weblogs as a medium.