Comment spam: they’re getting wise

  • Hmm..
    Had a comment spam appear which had only the one link (with the word “poker” among others). Interesting – clearly a spam. (Because I get emailed when there’s a new comment, I picked it up right away.)
    So people trying to spam WordPress blogs may have realised that they can’t use multiple links.
    One other thing that I notice with comment spam: it’s always made to old entries. Never to the newest ones, presumably because you’d be more likely to be told about those made to new ones, or notice it yourself.
    I think the list of spam words is going to have to be enlarged, if one is going to leave it feasible for people to leave comments without registering.
    Perhaps for 1.3 (or 1.4??) a system whereby “block comments on posts older than…. ” ?

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

  • auto close comments plugin

    I can totally recommend the above plugin. Right now I close all entries after a week and I see very very little spam … (though yes, a week is fairly short a time)

    Just the bit below “04 July 2004”
    Create a php file with that as the content, upload to plugins, activate, forget ??

    Is there any whitespace in the plugin ?

    haha thanks podz. i had an extra space after the closing bracket. you’re a great help!

    I can certanly voutch for the above plugin….. as soon as I got it installed and all my old posts closed…… the comments came to a complete stop…… except for one, which I think was done the old fashioned way and was more of a flame comment than an actual spam.
    That said, if any devs are reading, I’d like to have a new feature, if it isn’t already planned. The ability to unapprove a comment. I tired to un approve the flame comment, and found the only way was to go into phpMyAdmin and find it in there and reset it. It would have been nice if I could have simply un-approved it.
    TG

    can’t you just delete them?
    i got spammed by the poker guy too. my problem is that my site uses wp more as a cms than a blog, so i don’t want to shut off comments on old articles. does anyone know where i can find a really good list of spam words? the one in the wiki is a good start but i need more!

    I could if I wanted to. I keep the comments around in an unapproved state so that I can later go back, pull out the URLs, IP addresses and other data out to add to my spam filter (which is getting less and less use now that posts auto close.)
    It helps me to detect if there is a trend for a particular site and/or user.
    TG

    Use Kitten’s spam tools. They are the cat’s meow.
    https://mookitty.co.uk/devblog/
    No need to increase the spam word list manually. Kitten’s tools do this for you automatically, and even check for duplication! Not only that, they check for more than keywords…they check for IP address and an email address. Even a spoofed address is used multiple times, so it’s nice to have it flagged as well.
    Run, don’t walk to her site and get the tool set. FYI, some of the spam tools are going to be integrated directly into the core of 1.3!

    Thread Starter charlesarthur

    (@charlesarthur)

    Yes, I already use Kitten’s Spam Words, and also Spammer Tar Pit. But “poker” isn’t in KSW (I looked, or maybe I really messed up; but it’s active in the plugins). Yes, I can delete, but that’s human effort against automata (because this was done by a machine, not a person; the person programmed many machines to do this all over the place).
    In humans vs machines, humans lose. That’s why spam in all its manifestations (infestations?) is such a problem – because we’re on the wrong end of the equation.
    I also prefer to let comments appear straight away: I want people to comment and to get the feedback that what they wrote appears.
    I’ll consider the “auto close comments” plugin. I’ve installed it but not activated it yet.

    I just moderate all comments and don’t make referrer logs public. They can spam all they want it kind of just makes me laugh

    is it possible to change the auto close comment to maybe something like the last 10 posts instead of days or to check between days and posts and see which is longer? cause there’s sometimes that I go a few days without posting, which leaves content on my front page longer so I want to continue to allow people to post to that topic.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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