To which I gnash my teeth and make a sacrifice to the Gods of Spam Prevention

[goldkin]

It's once again come to my attention that my journal is preventing people from commenting. This is probably due to the fact I had my journal set to "registered accounts" instead of "everyone", mucking up OpenID authentication.

So, if y'all were squelched or otherwise couldn't reply, do let me know -- anonymously if you have to. I'm curious if this Dreamwidth conversion is as seamless for you as I thought it was.

Comments

[prismaticsilver.livejournal.com]

Well now I'm kind of curious if I can post here and be a pest! xD

[goldkin]

Survey says... yep!

[prismaticsilver.livejournal.com]

Kisty's wouldn't let me last time I tried so, I feel like a winner here!

[goldkin]

[kistaro]

Oops. Fixed. As did others, I thought adding accounts explicitly to the Access List would work. Guess not.

[baphijmm]

I... didn't even realize mine was the same way. Huh.

[goldkin]

It's non-obvious. While it's called out in the FAQ, it'd be nice if this was highlighted during account setup.

[enotsola]

I think there needs to be a midpoint between "Registered Users" and "Everyone" which would allow verified OpenID. I mean, isn't the point to having people sign in with OpenID that they are verified via their off-site credentials?

[goldkin]

There's also an option for "Access List", but that also doesn't work for my purposes, since I want to allow anyone with a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account to comment.

Given a lack of such an option, and the fact bots could theoretically obtain either account type, "everyone" works just fine for my purposes. Though if I start getting Anon spam, I'll certainly reconsider the decision.

[arethinn]

I got anon spam within days of changing the setting to Everyone. Botheration.

[goldkin]

If the volume is low enough, I'll just report it.

I'm assuming DW has a mediated anti-spam system similar to Akismet (a la dw_antispam). If it doesn't, I'll politely facepalm and consider other options.

[arethinn]

It is apparently possible for an OpenID user to "claim" their OpenID profile on Dreamwidth by verifying an email address, and then the system should treat them as "registered user". I find it annoying that even if you have given access to the "account" in question, it apparently still considers them "everybody".

[goldkin]

That does seem a bit weird. And honestly, more conducive to people not bothering to verify their identity.

I feel there needs to be more granularity there. Arg.

[arethinn]

I do too. Truly anonymous, OpenID, registered DW user, access list, would seem to me to be the sensible thing. I remember raising this question in a dw_news thread a while back, but I dunno if I can find it...

[goldkin]

The most sensible thing to me, if I were reimplementing the comment system, would be to replace the drop-down list with a list box or list of check boxes. This is because Dreamwidth allows three primary methods of authentication (DW registration, access list, and OpenID) which aren't necessarily hierarchical.


Allowing the user to specify, as follows:

Allow comments from:

[ ] Access list
[ ] Registered users
[ ] OpenID and third parties
[ ] Anonymous users

(If you select nothing, comments will be disabled.)

... would present the best view for the user, even if some selections don't make intuitive sense. Filters are implied, and thus not part of the list.

That's how I'd do it, anyway.