Comments on: Commenting

By: Rick Beckman

Rick Beckman — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:35:47 +0000

Amy, for all of your readers, I’m going to summarize my suggestions above:

Bad Behaviour: This plugin examines every request made to your blog and decides whether or not it is a valid user or what could be called a malicious bot or script. Spam comments can’t be made if their tool can’t access your blog in the first place! To use a religious metaphor, Bad Behaviour does an excellent job at separating the tares from the wheat for you. Bad Behaviour is in active development and is always becoming a more powerful defense for blogs. Bad Behaviour works on Wordpress as well as just about any other php software.

Akismet: This plugin examines every comment made to your blog by sending it to the Akismet servers, which are constantly becoming more intelligent and more adept at catching spam. Spam is stored on your blog for only 15 days, while the “Ham” is handled according to your WordPress commenting rules.* Spam that makes it past Akismet can be marked as spam, which sends it back to Akismet so that it may learn. “Ham” that Akismet marks as spam can be rescued from the Spam list, and it also will be sent back to Akismet so that it may learn from that also.

Both Bad Behaviour and Akismet are extremely easy to use, with far fewer options and things to worry about than Spam Karma 2 or other options I have seen available.

* For example, if Akismet analyzes a comment which contains 8 links and determines that it is not spam, yet your WordPress settings are set to hold any comment with more than 3 links in the moderation queue, the comment will be held for moderation. Further, Akismet may not have a problem with any of the words on your moderation list or blacklist, so it might let comments with those through. Such comments will still have to make it by the WordPress word lists.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:23:42 +0000

Amy, I used to have horrible trouble with spam on my blog - up to 140 spam comments a day! I installed Askimet, which helped a lot, but it didn’t catch probably 10-15/day. I noticed that all the spam comments were on posts a few months old or older, so I found a WordPress plug-in called “Auto-Close Comments” which automatically closes comments on posts older than 3 weeks. This has made the difference for me - almost no spam gets through now. (Of course, my site gets quite a bit less traffic than you!) I just wanted to let you know if you’ve been having the same problems (with spam hitting older posts).

By: KSmilkmaid

KSmilkmaid — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:55:47 +0000

This is timely info. I am having so much garbage over at my place and spam karma 2 is not catching all of it. In fact, I like to have all my comments moderated just to keep contention to a minimum. SK2 doesn’t permit that. It moderates for me and there is no rhyme or reason to who it holds in moderation and who it doesn’t I will be checking into both of these now. I love blogging but this is enough frustration to make a person quit.

By: Rick Beckman

Rick Beckman — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 02:57:36 +0000

I used to use Spam Karma 2, but that was quite a while before discovering Bad Behaviour. And I’ve been using Akismet since it came out, and the two seem to play perfectly nice together.

Akismet will automatically examine every comment made and either allow it to be posted, send it to your moderation queue based upon your regular Wordpress comment settings, or send it to an “Akismet Spam” section, alongside the moderation queue.

Comments in the Spam section are auto-deleted after 15 days, giving ample time to periodically browse and rescue any real comments that may have not passed Akismet’s tests. Any spam that does happen to get through (which is rare, in my experience) can easily be marked as Spam, which sends it to Akismet which learns from it, making it smarter and better for everyone using it.

I’m starting to sound like I’ll get a commission if you start using it, but it really is a time-saver and a blog-related stress reliever. It really is nice knowing that I can leave my blogs alone for just about any length of time and trust that the spam problem will, well, not be a problem while I’m gone.

Being the mother of several children, you don’t need to be wasting your time on spam, so Akismet gets my wholehearted recommendation.

By: Amy Scott

Amy Scott — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 02:47:42 +0000

Rick,

I have the first, but not the second plugin. I will look into that when I have a minute or ten. I wonder if my Spam Karma 2 isn’t running some kind of interference with the Bad Behavior one, though. All my settings have to be on “Severe” so we don’t have to read about Levitra and Party Poker.

By: Rick Beckman

Rick Beckman — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 02:42:33 +0000

Amy, since you’re using Wordpress, I wonder if you’ve ever heard of Bad Behaviour (first result on Google)? It has worked wonders on the blogs I’ve installed it on. Akismet is also a wonder-worker. The both together: priceless.

But maybe you’re already using both, in which case feel free to ignore me.

God bless, and best wishes with the Battle of the Spam!