Spam Mathematics

Our spam filters have caught 8,546 spam comments in the last two weeks, but as some of you may have noticed, a dozen or so each day still get through. In an attempt to stem the tide, and to make people more willing to subscribe to our comments RSS feed, we are trying something new. Now, whenever you post a comment you will be asked to solve a very simple math problem, such as the sum of 9 and 4. Hopefully that won’t be too difficult for all the math illiterate anthropologists out there (myself included). I’ve read that this can be quite effective in combating spam. If it isn’t then we’ll try something else …

UPDATE: To avoid silly jokes, I’ve turned off comments on this post.

P. Kerim Friedman is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University, in Taiwan, where he teaches linguistic and visual anthropology. He is co-director of the film Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!, winner of the 2011 Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology. Follow Kerim on Twitter.