Sometimes I wander into unknown web territory and discover things I really shouldn’t. Today, it’s the knowledge of the upcoming release of Movable Type 3.2. I read through Jay Allen’s list of a few of the new features, and thought I would compare some of them to what’s already available in WordPress, and in what’s to come.
First, I want to mention that I’m getting tired of disclaimers, but if I don’t add one then I’ll needlessly get my butt handed to me in comments. Yeah, it’s likely to happen anyway. Second, the actual disclaimer: I’m not proposing that one tool is better or worse than the other. If one tool is better for you, then I would expect you to ignore any bias I might subconsciously instill in this comparison.
Here we go.
The System Overview
This feature of Movable Type provides a unified interface for reviewing activity on the managed website. Since Movable Type is multiblog-capable, all of the blog details are centralized here.
The feature itself seems like the WordPress Dashboard feature, which we’ve had since version 1.5’s release. Whereas WordPress provides more information (not just recent posts, comments, and trackbacks, but incoming links supplied by Technorati), the Movable Type System Overview seems to offer some actions directly from the page.
Just looking at the screenshot, it appears as if you can mark entries and apply actions to them from a dropdown. This would be handy on the WordPress dashboard, specifically for approving recent moderated comments.
Feedback Rating Framework
This new system in MT is directly related to controlling comment spam. The system sounds a lot like that in Spam Karma 2, where a base set of rules is applied to spam to generate a rating, and additional plugins can provide adjstments to that rating. Rather than tacking on the spam rating system as a plugin like Spam Karma, MT 3.2 includes the framework in the core. I feel torn on this behavior.
For one, I like the idea that there is a baseline for the ratings system. On the other hand, as has been my position on comment spam all along, releasing many systems is better than having one target for the spammers to overcome. It’s should still be possible to use MTBlacklist and similar plugins with the new framework, so innovation won’t be stifled. I don’t know - I get the same weird feeling about this as I get about SpamAssassin. I know it works, I’m just waiting for the rules to be gamed.
Nonetheless, it’s good that Six Apart is being proactive about spam prevention, since their unaltered blog software enables many of the major offenders.
The Junk Folder
The junk folder is a feature of Movable Type that WordPress could stand to learn a little from. WordPress currently sends all of its spam comments to their doom when they fail to meet the criteria of the internal filters. The upcoming MT’s behavior allows admins to set the strength and behavior of the software for dealing with the spam, which is something that WordPress pretty much fails at.
I currently run two plugins for dealing with comments. First is my own OSA plugin, which does spam filtering beyond what is built in, and is very effective. Second is the ColdForged Paged Comments plugin which allows me to review spam comments in the management page and approve or delete them. Without these plugins, spam comments would simply clutter up the comments table in my WordPress database.
One of the features that the MT junk folder provides is a method for junk to be collected and disposed of if it’s not dealt with. Rather than all of those spam comments building up like they do in WordPress (OSA will delete these comments after a set number of days, but the core does not), the junk folder deletes them after 14 days. That’s good.
It seems you can also use the comments in the junk folder to tune MT’s new built-in spam filtering. OSA uses the spam comments in the database to do just that, but the WordPress core does not.
I do have to give props to the devs and the WordPress community for the plugins that are available to handle these issues. I think everyone has stepped up to fill these holes quite well, especially with a variety of options for solving the problems, rather than forcing the devs to settle on the way to do it. Out of the box, WordPress is quite effective at preventing spam from cluttering the blog, but after a comment is blocked, WordPress doesn’t offer much in the way of dealing with it.
Trackback Moderation and Editing
Hmm. Well, WordPress won’t separate out your trackbacks from your comments, but it will do bulk approval and deletion. The main issue here is, why is MT even supporting Trackback anymore?
I suppose that they pioneered it and it is very widespread. The fact of the matter is that Trakback is a broken technology in the first place. If Trackback wasn’t broken, then there wouldn’t be a need for special managment of its actions. Most people shouldn’t want Trackback, or at least, Trackback shouldn’t be used how it is being used for commenting. Pingbacks are a much better way to create automatic reciprocal links to sites that link to you.
I am sure that there is at least one plugin that will allow WordPress to send all Trackbacks directly to moderation while leaving comment functionality alone.
Blog Feedback Settings
As a non-user of Movable Type, the new feedback settings page is kind of perplexing to me. The options include global commenting and trackbacking on/off settings, and emailed notifications of new comments configurable based on their spam status. Why didn’t these options exist before?
Of course, WordPress has offered these options for as far back as I have used WordPress. Some of the options need improvement, such as the ability to enable and disable comments/trackbacks/pingbacks on individual posts and how it relates to the global setting. Does tripping the global setting turn off commenting globally, or does it make that the default setting for new posts? Hmm?
Also, I really miss the ability to turn on and off outgoing pings on individual posts. There are some posts that I would prefer to toil in obscurity, for example, the ones where I’m likely to offend users of particular blogging software with something I’ve said about its capabilities in comparison to some other package.
Anyway, the list of new features is supposedly expanding. Stop by the Movable Type blog to learn more about the new capabilities of MT 3.2.
