Once I built a forum; now it's done. Brother, do you need \/1@gr@?

Me and the Internet go way back.  Admittedly not as far back as some, but we first got acquainted, much to the chagrin of Compuserve, late in '93.  I was there when Martha and Larry first showed us what spam could be.  I blogged before blogging was blogging.  I've fiddled with ads and affiliate links, and have hosted my very own controversial page.

Now, by the early naughts, I was pretty fed up with spam, like anyone else with a net presence at the time.  Since I hosted the aforementioned controversial web page, it seemed like it would be nice to host a simple discussion forum, so people could express themselves to me, without having to give away my email address, which was already getting in the neighborhood of 100 spam messages a day.

Suffice it to say, that lasted for a few years, before it totally blew up.  Any more, you can't host a forum if you aren't prepared to constantly police it for spam posts, and even worse, hacking.  Blogs hosted by big faceless corporations are certainly a better option for the casually opinionated, but it's a little sad that one guy with a web host, Notepad, and a little Perl knowledge can no longer host a vibrant discussion online.