A quick word of introduction: I’m James Pearce, the new dotMobi CTO. I’ve been working with the mobile web for over seven years now, and I’m excited about this. 2007 feels like it really could be the year that the…

just my .02

1) you can not win.
2) you can not draw.
3) you can not leave the play.

Greetings,

Antonio, from Malaga (Spain)

for what problem do you want a solution?
a) make your blog spam free;
b) do (a) effortlessly;
c) do (b) for every blog site;
d) achieve (c) once and forever;
e) achieve (d) for every form of communication, not just blog.

Also, would you consider solving a problem 90% victory or defeat?
If you want (e) and 100%+, then I’m afraid there is no silver bulet. But if you think that every step which makes spammers extra problem without harm to the good guy, it’s worth doing, then read on I have few [teoretical] thought.

First, (a) is achievable by allowing only proofread and approved comments. I don’t know is that acceptable according to moral codex of blogger. But goal is achievable 100%. If 90% solution is acceptable, then maybe you can let your readers to help your other readers to avoid visiting spammers by implementing some vote system.

Granted, this requires resources to implement. Can you automate that? Of course, it requires testing, but how about checking comment and contents of the links in it against SA’s database which you use for e-mail? After some training I think good portion of spam would be filtered out. Remaining could be dealt using manual methods.

Goals (c)-(e) are somethere beyound horizon, but to aproach to them I don’t see any other way than methodically cutting opportunities for spammers and lowering their revenue:expences rate.

And if all your post is about yet another case where marketoids won over techies, then I’m saddened by that fact no less than you. Do you have solution for this problem? :-)

Invalid code does not conform to standards — that’s the way it is, wise or not.

“Not mention standards” is very different from saying that invalid code conforms to standards.
It does not matter if your blog is 1% invalid — it is still better than 1000 valid ones, including this. And you should absolutely talk about standards — you have best web-oriented blog and thousands are listening (reading, I mean).

And that’s why you should be careful with what you say. You say “It is invalid now but I am working on it” — it is OK. But when someone says “It is not valid, and will never be, so f*** the W3C” — that’s bad. It makes developers comfortable with a thought that invalid code is OK. “Keith said it, Mike said it, … said it” — so let’s move on.
There is the limit of invalidity? How bad code should be when you will say, “no, that’s not acceptable”? Are majority of the web is based on web standards now, cause their code looks much like HTML?
How are we going to have CMS that produce valid code if nobody cares?

Do you agree, that getting valid code is the easiest part of developing the site (I am not talking about maintenance here)? Design, IA or usability is much more difficult to get done right.

And not every site will be a blog with comments system. So if you done it right from the start you shouldn’t have much problems later.

If one leaves code cleaning for the better times, that are the chances those times will ever come?

Call me whatever you want. Calling names will not change anything. It will not improve anything. And we are on the same side anyway. Only you choose to emphasize what user sees and interacts, I am trying to say that code is important too.

Or is it? Is Anne right: there is no point?

Is that wise? I mean my site is 99% valid. I’ve got a problem with my comments, which are essential to my site and I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time trying to sort that out. It’s not possible without sacrificing functionality. Period. So I’ve got to choose between validity and functionality. I chose functionality.

Now, back to your favor. Should I now not mention standards on my site because I have a few valid pages? Fine by me, but I don’t see how this HELPS the cause of Web standards. If anything by alientating folks like me and Mike (and many, many more) all you’re doing is hurting the “cause.”

As of now, I’ve removed my validation links. I’ve got absolutley no problem not supporting Web standards. I’ll leave that to the Zealots.