[wp-hackers] Trackback Validator plugin now available.

[Dan Sandler]

> yeah, I also agree with that, but then, all of trackback SPAM will 
> also end up in the Moderation queue & its as good as setting the 
> "Moderate All Comments" option in WordPress.

This is true for spam (or suspected spam), but valid trackbacks would 
end up on the website immediately, which you wouldn't get with 
"Moderate All Comments".

> Basically, for this plugin to be somewhat practical, it would need to 
> do more than what it does. It'll need to have a sort of blacklisting 
> where it compares the trackbacks against the blacklist & looks for URL 
> and word matches and then also sees if the URI sent in trackback has 
> your link & then it should decide whether to deep-six it or put it in 
> moderation. This brings us back to anti-spam plugins like SpamKarma 
> which I believe this sort of matches & assigns Karma to every task & 
> evaluate the fate of a trackback or comment based on it.

It's true that this approach is more tolerant of Trackback that doesn't 
fit the simpler model and assumptions of the Validator.  However, we 
chose not to implement all that additional content-based stuff for a 
couple of reasons:

1. It introduces confounding variables in our study.  That is, because 
we want to observe how effective link checking is in combatting 
Trackback spam, we aren't currently interested in throwing other 
heuristics in there alongside that technique.

2. In our experience, that technique caught all the spam and none of 
the ham.

I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback we've received from this 
group.  I encourage you to try the plugin if you're not already using 
some other anti-spam measures (or even if you are), and then report 
back to us if you see the plugin make the wrong call.  Hard data 
(especially if you receive a Trackback tomorrow that the Validator 
misclassifies) is what we're after, in the end.

Thanks again,
---dan