Lord knows, I don’t get all that many comments, but, I really get sick of spam ones. Between either Spam Karma 2 and Askimet, which I switch between, trackback spam and comment spam is stopped most of the time. Sometimes, they catch legit trackbacks and spam, but that is like 1 in 500 or so.
But lately, comment spam has been getting through that looks innocuos, and pretty much is, from blogspot sites. The comments make no sense, and doesn’t look like the sites are selling anything. Gets annoying deleting them out, and getting email alerts.
So, I wanted something simple to stop comment spam, some type of challenge/response plugin. I did not want to have to turn registration on. Most that I found are just too in depth, have to play with too much on the backend. Except for Gatekeeper. You upload one file, activate the plugin, then go to the manage section, add more challenges if you want, then activate it. Done.
Not one spam comment from the blogspot sites has made it through since. If you have WordPress, get Gatekeeper. You can turn it on and off in a heartbeat.
If you have WordPress, and do not want to go the route of making people register, try Gatekeeper.
Update, 6/10/06: those annoying Blogspot fake sites are finding ways around the words, and I keep having to change the phrases. So, I am trying one a little stronger, Anti Spam Image. Again, a simple plugin, one small file, so there is no need to play with alot of images. Just not as fun as creating your own challenges 🙂
Supposedly, it interferes with Spam Karma 2, but I am not having issues. Yet.
More: having trouble. Trackbacks never show up with SK2 active. Seems to work with Askimet.
Even More: apparently, trackbacks stopped even without either SK2 or Askimet turned on. Sucks. See this post.
[…] William Teach (Pirate's Cove) suggests a spam plugin for WordPress. […]
Ha! A quick cure! Just stop posting altogether and you don’t get many spam hits!
I spotted the pirates at a local SCA event and took a picture of the “mast” just for you Teach. (sca – Society for Creative Anachronism) Apparently there is a whole group of pirates, however, no one was hanging about there to ask.
[…] OK-dokey. I have tried Gatekeeper and Anti-spam Image so far in an attempt to deal with obnoxious comment spam, mostly coming from BS blogspot site that actually make zero sense. (See this post) […]
Have you tried out my Comments Post Rewriter Plugin? I needs JavaScript on client-side, mod_rewrite on server-side, one addition to .htaccess and some mods in comments.php. You can find it on my blog – when its back online… Strange, can you reach it?