Jay Allen, one of the product managers at SixApart which produces Movable Type, left a comment on how to decipher the is-spam-not-spam logic ? Wow. I'm
a) flattered that such an awesome dude left me a comment
b) that SixApart looks for these entries (trust me, I know how many blog reads I get, and I soooo know that Six Apart doesn't read this blog, so they must be doing a really smart search for feedback on MT given specific factors that I do have an idea about) and
c) that Jay took the time to leave a comment to explain it to me so I can use MT 3.2 and the SpamLookup plugin more efficiently. Now I feel really important to them, indeed. Unsolicited comments and help. Wow.
This is what I call Proactive Customer Service. They're doing what many smart companies are doing nowadays - tracking what's being said about their product in blogland. Then they sent the genius who created all this lovely anti-spam (Which, btw Jay, really really works well. Much less spam after I started using SpamLookup instead of MT Blacklist.) to leave a comment. Or someone on his behalf, which is also cool.
I do feel like I should disclose that I'm a member of sixApart's ProNet professional network of developers. Even though I signed up more in a "keep my head in the loop" type of thing rather than an active developer, I still feel I should mention it. They gave me a Network Member License for free when I joined; the license entitles me to actual customer support from sixapart via trouble tickets. This is important because it really gives me a someone to talk to when I have a problem or see an area for possible improvement. Long ago I went with Movable Type because I knew they would probably go commercial- they were a tightly knit core of developers who literally had a real investment in making MT into a good product. BTW, this is in no way to say that I don't love the open source software communities and their efforts- I do and there are several products which I really love created by open source communities. Just saying that in the budding age of the internet, Ben and Mina made an effort to make money off of what they thought was a great idea and had to produce a great product so people would want to pay for it. It should come as no surprise that it can be pretty tough these days to create a product people are willing to pay for when something similar could be had for free. Some people prefer WordPress, especially when MT started restricting their free license with version 3.x. Personally, I prefer my world cut and dry- either give it to me for free without ads or ask me to pay for it. Don't do some tiny advertisement insertion on the bottom of your homepage where only browser bots can see it so you can avoid asking me to donate.
Many thanks to Jay and SixApart for following up on a question which wasn't even submitted to them, at least not by me. Go have a read about their Project Comet which aims to bring blogging into the mainstream. Privacy Settings, media rich, and easy to stay updated. I dig that.
I am all for telling someone thanks, you did an awesome job