Sep 07
11
Spamified Commentified
Since I started blogging again a couple of days ago, this blog was under spam attack very heavily. I tried many setting of the default spam protection and somehow it wasn’t stopping the incoming flood of spam. Sometime I set things wrong and then some of you were complaining that you were not able to leave any comments. Sorry for that, it was totally my sloppy mistake.
First
Thomas advised me to use Akismet plugin. It worked quite good but it was not eliminating all the spam and for me one spam was too many. And somehow in MT4, there are no indication whatsoever about how this spam filter actually work. It said, Akismet works transparently but actually, I don’t want too much transparency since it make me feels uncontrollable. But somehow this plugin worked beautifully to reduce my daily spam and hopefully this plugin was not eating the real comment since I don’t know where I could find the page that shows all the captured spam comments. Somebody help me with this? Thanks.
Final
I am not really fond of CAPTCHA since it reduce accessibility and usability especially for those who are using text browser or any non-graphic enabled browser. But it seems like the fast and quick solution for my spam problem now. So starting today, I put CAPTCHA feature in the comment form and it work beautifully. Hopefully in the future, once I’ve got a better way to handle spam I will remove it.
Rest
So hopefully, I solve the comment spam problem for now. I am still looking for a more efficient, effective, accessible and usable way to do this. If only I could make some free time - it’s been quite busy lately with Real Life™. In the mean time, sorry for the inconvenience lately and if you are still unable to comment here, please send email to avianto@gmail.com and I will try to solve this problem right away.
Thanks for all of the support lately (33 comments for my first entry after two years were just wow, thanks people).
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3 Comments
Another way is to use Preview button rather than Submit. When the spam bots fill the form, it wiil be stoped on preview message, otherwise, regular commentators can easily press Submit after previewing their comment.
I think it can be quite easy to do. Just by remove the Submit button after the comment form.
…where I could find the page that shows all the captured spam comments
You mean under “Manage Comments”, use the “Spam Comment” Quickfilter?
Currently, as I mentioned in our discussion, I only use Akismet and Spamlookup. Yes, I know Akismet does not always caught spam comments correctly. But it’s rarely happen.
Anyway, there are some techniques about handling spam in Movable Type. I haven’t tried them all.
I want to second dhani about the preview technique. I use this for few months (couldn’t remember when).
silent @ September 11, 2007 6:49 PM
I don’t know MT, but using wp I use a combination of first comment moderation (if this is your first comment, the you’ll be hold for moderation) and akismet plugin. So, lets akismet kill SPAM and I manage the one that pass through akismet (68% is not SPAM). Well, 1-2 SPAM a month is slip through it though. but I can easily mark as SPAM these comment :D. I don’t use captcha using this technic.