Comment Spam
My biggest daily chore with the blog has unfortunately been moderating comments as spam due to Akismet not spotting them correctly and sticking them in the ‘Akismet Spam’ list. I’ve now had to install some comment form checking like in the old days of v1, for the small extra effort required by comment posters it should be a load off my shoulders.
Akismet worked great at first but a lot of spam seems to get through now. I had assumed that if I marked those that slipped through as spam and passed them over to Akismet it would learn and catch further similar spams, but it’s not worked out this way.
I’ve installed the Did You Pass Math? plugin. How does it work you ask…
Asks the person making the comment to answer a simple math question. This is intended to prove they are a human being and not some kind of robot.
e.g. What is the sum of 2 and 9?
Hopefully you’ll all not mind the extra seconds to post a comment, I actually think it only asks if you’re not logged in so regularly posters shouldn’t be affected.
Tags: plugins, spam, wordpress
May 5th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Update: The new plugin seems to be working okay, i’ve not had any spam since this morning which is a big improvement.
I’ve not had any normal comments though, did I scare you all away
May 5th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
I’m still around
Akismet seems to catch all of my spam. Not sure why things are different for your blog.
May 11th, 2006 at 10:32 am
What a cool plugin. Not only does it prevent automated spam but it stops people from making comments if they are too stupid to do basic maths!
May 11th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
I hope my regulars are math literate then, cos my comment total has dropped a bit ;P