This is getting very tiresome, Google... Don't make me ask for a server for Christmas!! I was gonna get an I-Pod!!

Chris Pirillo:

Suggestion, Google? As bold as this might sound, you should institute an authentication system - a captcha of sorts - for every single post that gets sent through your Blogger service. This means that there's no more easy rides for the idiots out there who are killing your baby and the blogosphere. The user logs in, enters their post, then has to jump through a captcha hoop - much like commenters have to do on Blogger.com these days. It's a simple suggestion, and one that you really, really, really, REALLY oughta consider. You were willing to go the ref="nofollow" route, why stop there?

Copy the captcha to the publishing system, Google - let's just see what happens? Please, for the love of all that is holy, STOP MAKING IT SO INCREDIBLY EASY FOR THE SPAMMERS TO EXPLOIT. If you don't want to try anymore, then just get rid of Blogger altogether.

In other words: kill IT before they kill YOU!!

I heartily agree, and in fact asked for the same darn thing way back in August.

via RSSBlog. See also Tim Bray, Scripting News.

Heavy Hitters bringing out big guns. So hey, Google, whatcha gonna do?

Update: Elliot Back has been experimenting, & finds 28% splogs....

A couple of thoughts on his study.....

1. The next / random blog button isn't truly random - or at least wasn't a while back... As I understand it, Blogger generate a small set of recently published blogs & then the next blog button navigates through that set randomly, which explains why some of the blogs show up more than once in quick succession.

2. I think that the splogs are probably more visible on the weekends, because there aren't as many "real" blogs getting published & the automated ones just keep punching out the posts? I'd be interested to see a repeat experiment on peak-publishing Tuesday... Either way, 28% bogus sites is way too high for a legitimate hosting service!!

3. It appeared at one stage that this button had been fixed & that splogs were being excluded from these results. Not so, apparently. What to do, what to do...?