Thanks for the question Dennis. I'm finding the discussion fascinating.

My working blogs are self-hosted WordPress blogs and I rely on a combination of Akismet and moderation. I require a name and an email address: web/blog url is optional. The system allows returning commenters' comments through without my having to approve them.  At present I find it a non-onerous task to delete the ones that get past Akismet but  are still spam. And for those who haven't used Akismet (why you would not, if you have a WordPress site, escapes me), one of the options for managing comments is to identify it as spam. Which helps build the database of spammers.

I posted yesterday about some of the odd "comments" that either Akismet or I have screened out http://tinyurl.com/2w8sdx .

I've been finding the Blogger system for commenting a bit of a challenge. Using my Blogger account provides a link to a non-active blog. Trying to use the option of another identity seems often enough to lead to my comment disappearing into cyberspace. After reading Bill's response on OpenID I have a feeling it's time I sat down and figured once and for all how to use OpenID.

In the days when I had blogs on the Blogware platform I had to work with the rather stringent system there for registering before commenting (similar to Typepad's Typekey system).  An entertaining, if rather tart, post by the prominent Irish blogger Damien Mulley, who had wanted to leave a comment but decided against it, led me to review the situation and provide a workaround. It's instructive reading on the perception of a potential commenter about what might seem to the spam-besieged blogger to be perfectly reasonable systems.  Damien's post here http://tinyurl.com/2rp7nv  (slightly strong language, which I must admit helped get my attention!).

Des

Des Walsh
http://www.linkedin.com/in/deswalsh 
http://www.deswalsh.com 
http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com 


--- In LinkedinBloggers@yahoogroups.com, "Dennis D. McDonald" <ddmcd@...> wrote:
>
> Do readers have to register to post comments on your blog? Or can
> readers post comments without registering, with or without requiring
> some sort of spam-control like an image verification system?
>
> If you do require registration, do you think you're losing any
> comments because of the extra effort that requires?
>
> If you don't require registration, how satisfied are you with how you
> currently handle comment spam?
>
> Dennis McDonald
> co-moderator, Linkedin Bloggers
> http://www.ddmcd.com
>