Open Salon closed up shop today!

Open Closed would make an interesting headline.

They probably are referring to the never ending battle with spammers flooding their posts with junk.

Spam has become and is a huge problem for the internet both as a distraction and the labor to remove it.

I know one site with a "New Members" forum that requires 5 posts before you can get out of the play pen. It's closely monitored, and the spammers almost never get out into the general population. It would be tough here because so many join for one specific question before departing.

My favourite cooking forum had a similar approach. First post had to be approved by the admins. Ten posts before someone could start a thread. Doesn't work well on a site where there are so many one-offs.

I cottened on to The Dish rather late in it's existence, but once I read, I got avid fast, and I'm not the only one. Andrew Sullivan was the blogger and he has a hefty history of readers. Also a history of changing his mind. History of people who do or do not like him.

He's a conservative and, oh, worse, a catholic, of sorts.
Alternately, he and the site let in responses and a lot of discussion.
The writing by anyone was generally sharp.
I found the site invaluable, once I found it.
Gone now.

Thanks Roger, Butrflynet, Beth, Ossobuco.

Another good forum bit the dust…and with each going, the world just seems a bit poorer. Guess I am feeling a bit sad about it.

Glad Robert’s baby is still here for us.

Spam/comment policing. It's a lot of work. There isn't a lot that can be automated (yet). Moderation remains a cottage industry, almost a craft.

A lot of sites will implement automated policies such as not allowing a new post until an account has been activated for at least a week, or no topic creation until an account has been active for a month, or has at least 10 posts or whatever. Others will allow for a sandbox forum posting for maybe the first week or first 10 posts and then the other forums unlock.

All of these are objective measurements but they don't really help a lot of posters. One-off posters are screwed by these automated requirements. So are, usually, people who don't speak the predominant language on a board and can't understand the rules.

On the other side of it, a lot of smaller sites use out of the box software. Creating these sorts of automation rules requires some programming finesse that smaller sites might not be able to afford.

Yeah, Jesbah...the damn spammers screw it up for everyone.

Too bad that...but I understand.

Abuzz was super. When it closed, I actually went into a funk for a long while. Then I came here.

Open Salon was something different than here...not set up as a discussion site, but rather as a blogger Mecca.

I won't go into a funk now...mostly because there is a new site called Our Salon that is acting for Open Salon the say Able2Know worked for Abuzz. I may join that site as some point.