Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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Combating Spam (Updated)

Update: I have Askimet already. It’s the false positives, i.e. comments landing in moderation and spam filters that’s the problem.

Lately there’s been a huge increase in spam here. The result of my current methods of combating it is that heaps of your comments are winding up in the moderation queue. As I have a very heavy work schedule at the moment I’m often not getting to those comments for hours at a time. Not good.

I’m thinking of installing one of those anti-spam word thingies where you have to type in a random word or grouping of letters to prove you’re not a spambot. However, I kind of hate them when they’re on other people’s blogs. They definitely put me off commenting.

How about youse lot?

Would you hate it if I added such a plug-in? Would you be okay with it if the words it generated were amusing and/or related to this blog? Like “quokka” or “mangosteen”?

Anyone got any other brilliant spam combating tactics?

Posted by Justine at 11:53, 4 June 2009 under Admin, Bloggery | 21 Comments »

Comments

  1. Miriam Says:

    I personally don’t have a problem with typing in letters to prove I’m human. :-) Some of the combinations are actually really funny. I got one yesterday that made me type in “Pottery Walter”

    June 4th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

  2. Phiala Says:

    I hate those too. But there’s one slightly better than the rest: the validation words are from scanned books that are being converted to text.

    Since it’s useful, and book-related, it is slightly less annoying than the other kind.

    June 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm

  3. Celsius1414 Says:

    I’ve had great luck with the Akismet plugin for Wordpress on several sites of mine. Definitely recommended.

    June 4th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

  4. 4. Justine Says:

    Celsius141: I have Askimet. My problems is false positives. Too many legit comments are winding up in moderation and/or the spam filters.

    June 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

  5. Nicholas Waller Says:

    I don’t mind typing in words, though I prefer it if they look like real words, and certainly they have to be reasonably clear. Alastair Reynolds’s blog used to have an irritating system with the letters and numbers you had to type only slightly darker than other decoy ones of various sizes, so you couldn’t always be sure what to type, and even if you got it right the system wouldn’t always accept it. Eventually he got rid of it.

    June 4th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

  6. Annalee Flower Horne Says:

    Seconding recapcha, which uses the word verifications to help digitize books, making them more accessible to those with limited or impaired vision. I am happy to take five seconds out of my day for a cause like that.

    June 4th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

  7. rockinlibrarian Says:

    I don’t mind typing verifications, unless what they give you is so hard to read you get the letters wrong, or the ones that are case sensitive and then give you letters like “o” and “v.” So avoid THOSE sorts, and you’re fine by me.

    June 4th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

  8. Katherine Says:

    I don’t mind verifications.

    June 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

  9. Emily Says:

    I really don’t have a problem with the verification jumbles! Go ahead! If it makes your life easier, I’m cool with it (:

    June 4th, 2009 at 2:26 pm

  10. cg Says:

    I am just fine with those things…I work on the net all day long and see them everywhere…one more is not going to throw me…and it never stops me from commenting. Just as long as you keep up all the great work you do I have no problems with them…

    June 4th, 2009 at 2:33 pm

  11. Patrick Says:

    This is wordpress. Discover the magic of WP-SpamFree.

    http://www.hybrid6.com/webgeek/plugins/wp-spamfree

    June 4th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

  12. Katy Cooper Says:

    Count me among those who don’t mind the verification codes, especially if it’ll make things easier for you.

    June 4th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

  13. Harriet Says:

    I don’t mind spam verification in principle, though I do get annoyed when the word jumble is really hard to read.

    I have a maths verification on my blog – you have to answer a simple addition sum. You don’t need to be a mathematician: anyone with fingers and the ability to count should be able to do it. Very rarely a bit of spam gets through, but generally it seems to work pretty well.

    Though I don’t know if a maths problem is really your idiom …

    June 4th, 2009 at 7:39 pm

  14. Rachel Says:

    Cool with it! : – )

    June 4th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

  15. Tim Says:

    I only find verification codes annoying if they’re long, abstract and/or hard to read. Honestly, if it makes it easier for us to post and you to moderate I don’t think it’s such an unacceptable move.

    June 4th, 2009 at 10:14 pm

  16. Mary Elizabeth S. Says:

    Wouldn’t bother me in the least, so long as it asks for actual words and not random jumbles.

    ~Mary

    June 4th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

  17. Catherine Says:

    I actually think they’re kind of fun if it’s actual words. Random letter groupings are annoying though.

    June 5th, 2009 at 12:19 am

  18. Tim Keating Says:

    Make people login. But let them use OpenID, so they could login with their LJ or Google or Yahoo or whatever account they wanted to use. As long as it supports OpenID.

    June 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

  19. Tim Keating Says:

    Oh, and I should have said: I LOATHE CAPTCHAS. Stupidest idea ever. I always seem to get the ones where I can’t can’t tell l from 1, and sometimes I.

    June 5th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

  20. Tempest Says:

    You might want to have someone tweak your moderation settings, also might be good to email the askimet people and tell them that this is happening, as it may be a problem on their end.

    The thing I do to combat spam is to set it so every comment from someone who has never commented before goes into moderation. If I approve their comment, then all the rest of their comments will go up fine. If I don’t approve because it’s spam, i don’t have to worry because they will just be moderated the next time.

    However, this can get tedious.

    You can also install the OpenID plugin toy our blog and set it so that people with OpenIDs get treated like spam less.

    June 5th, 2009 at 8:12 pm

  21. Q Says:

    I don’t mind word verification forms. I have a rather interesting use for them…

    I think the words from the blog idea is a good one, though.

    June 6th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

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