Making The Move
Time for me to make the move to Movable Type 3.0 and TypeKey comment authentication, sooner rather than later. Like “many”:http://www.robertkbrown.com/2004/05/29/how_do_these_people_sleep_at_night.html “others”:http://www.gadgetopia.com/2004/05/31/BotSpamming.html I’ve been getting hammered with a new deluge of spammers that are getting around my “MT-Blacklist”:http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/ spammer protection and I simply don’t have enough time to spend in keeping this place clean. “As I’ve mentioned before”:http://www.johnsjottings.com/archives/2004/03/21/more_on_typekey.html I really don’t like the idea of asking my real commenters, who mostly happen by once or maybe twice and that’s it, to take the time to register but I think that is what it’s going to come to.
The only thing that is holding me back from upgrading is I have not been able to get an answer from Six Apart on whether I need a commercial license because of my AdSense and Amazon ads or if a personal license, for this clearly personal site that happens to generate a little revenue, will suffice.
“This question”:http://www.movabletype.org/frequently_asked_questions.shtml#noncomm from the FAQ comes close to giving me the answer:
bq(quote). Q: I have a wishlist link or tip jar on my site, is that considered a commercial use?
A: A site including links such as Amazon Wishlists, tip jar or donation payments through PayPal or Amazon Honor System links, or merchandise sold through CafePress is not considered a commercial site if such links are not the primary purpose of the site and if the site’s use of Movable Type falls within the limitations described in the Personal Use license. For more information, please review our Personal Use license.
Why not mention AdSense? To me it is clear that if running a webstore with CafePress items is not necessarily commercial then AdSense should fall into the same category. AdSense is so prevalent in the blogging community right now, why not ad this to the FAQ?
Anyway, I’ve asked the question of Six Apart and received a “thank you for your email” response but no answer. I’ll stay patient for now and hope to have an answer soon. In which case the next question will be, “When will I find the time to do the upgrade?”
Sorry for the slow replies, we’ve been swamped with emails for a while and it’s taking us more time to reply now. You’re welcome to run Google ads (the license basically says personal use allows incidental revenue streams like that) and the like on your blog.
You can’t imagine how fun it was trying to explain to a lawyer that people who aren’t in business make money and we don’t mind it.
Hey, John. Just a heads up on the potential upgrade to 3.0 — it currently does not play nice with MT-Blacklist. I’d probably prefer to have both options available, the blacklist AND comment approval, because if I were to be hit by a ‘bot at AWIP, I’d still have to select a thousand some odd comments to delete.
They’d never appear on my site, which is some consolation, but I’d just as soon see ‘em unable to add a comment to my MT database, period.
John, the next version of MT-Blacklist (MT3-compatible) is coming out soon. See http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam for more…