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I see a lot of comments here about post spam. There seems to be a relatively simple solution - require a proof-of-work puzzle to be solved before the server wi

I see a lot of comments here about post spam. There seems to be a relatively simple solution - require a proof-of-work puzzle to be solved before the server will accept your comment submission. Then put the comment into a review queue anyway. Valid users submit comments very infrequently compared to an automated bot. They won't be inconvenienced if you set the difficulty right, and their environmental impact and electricity costs will be negligible. Bots will be attempting to submit spam comments en-masse, and so will need to be spending a large amount of money on electricity for solving these problems. The expected value per problem they solve will be extremely low, and so they'll actually be losing money due to electricity costs - and as for environmental impact, they could have been burning that CPU to mine bitcoin or something anyway (and, after they notice the servers they run their bots on start getting pegged on CPU, they'll quickly add your site to a blacklist). This solution also has the benefit of not feeding Google's ML efforts like Recaptcha would, or requiring you to set up Cloudflare, or inconvenience your users. What are the downsides?

fellowniusmonk 5y ago
> Then put the comment into a review queue anyway. > What are the downsides? Unless you're a professional moderator that is paid for your moderation... time. The primary thing we have a finite amount of.... No blogger with a blog post of substantial views is well served by a system that requires any moderation on their part at all. Link to a thoughtful and dedicated moderation platform and let that community decide if your thoughts are worthy of sharing and discussing. Saves everyone time. Here's a thought that just struck me, let me try it out: By not having a comment section you reduce your blogs filter bubble, because without knowing how people feel about your writing your blog post simply becomes a single entry in the aggregate "wisdom of crowds", once you engage a comment section you begin to locally meta cognate on what people think of your position and you end up with less original and diverse thought for the dedicated aggregators to surface.
- throw10920 5y ago
  That's not quite what I meant by "what are the downsides" - I was specifically referring to this system of proof-of-work-required-for-comment-submission, not comments in general. I agree that moderation requires time, my question was if there are downsides of adding a proof-of-work system specifically relative to the same system without proof-of-work.

fellowniusmonk 5y ago

> Then put the comment into a review queue anyway. > What are the downsides? Unless you're a professional moderator that is paid for your moderation... time. The primary thing we have a finite amount of.... No blogger with a blog post of substantial views is well served by a system that requires any moderation on their part at all. Link to a thoughtful and dedicated moderation platform and let that community decide if your thoughts are worthy of sharing and discussing. Saves everyone time. Here's a thought that just struck me, let me try it out: By not having a comment section you reduce your blogs filter bubble, because without knowing how people feel about your writing your blog post simply becomes a single entry in the aggregate "wisdom of crowds", once you engage a comment section you begin to locally meta cognate on what people think of your position and you end up with less original and diverse thought for the dedicated aggregators to surface.

throw10920 5y ago
That's not quite what I meant by "what are the downsides" - I was specifically referring to this system of proof-of-work-required-for-comment-submission, not comments in general. I agree that moderation requires time, my question was if there are downsides of adding a proof-of-work system specifically relative to the same system without proof-of-work.