Akismet:: comment security features

  • I haven’t yet tried using Akismet because I’m fairly happy w. SK2. But I’d like to find out whether Akismet covers features I’d like to see which SK2 doesn’t have.

    I find the need to ban individuals who aren’t necessarily spammers, but rather trolls. Sk2 does allow me to ban their IP addresses, but this is imperfect.

    I was wondering whether Akismet allows you to ban based on comment author name &/or e mail address? I have trolls who always use the same author name &/or e mail so this feature would be helpful.

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

  • Akismet doesn’t give you any sort of controls like this. You install it then let it do it’s thing. However I can’t see any reason not to run both the systems together – although I could well be wrong ??

    I run Akismet and SK2 together… some people I’ve heard even run both of them along with “Bad Behaviour” (which I think might have a little more of what you’re looking for, but I don’t think should be run alone without at least SK2)

    What is a SK2?

    Spam Karma 2. https://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/

    An easy lateral solution is to add the email address or nick of the person you want to ban into the list of bad words under options / disscussion – once saved there comments get picked up for moderation – although my users have to be registered to comment ! So they can’t just switch there nick and or email !

    Does Spam Karma 2 do better work than Bad Behavior 2?

    they do slightly different things, with some overlap. SK really is looking at spam in comments/trackbacks. BB is really looking at the headers of the page requests to try to detect fakers hitting the site. (That’s IMO, and certainly both go beyond what I’ve described!…).

    Both in combination seem to work well for many people. Note that each one has been known from time to time to have ‘false positives’ (BB recently blocked Fark from verifying links posted for articles; on one hand, Fark’s code might be considered ‘bad’, but on the other hand BB is, purposefully, very unforgiving.. ;).

    Both can be ‘adjusted’ for best/better results, and should be watched carefully for the first days/weeks of use to make sure you fix any issues REALLY early on.

    -d

    The spam keeps frustrating me. I have installed sk2 and bb too. What should I do?

    Thread Starter richards1052

    (@richards1052)

    RobinLKM: I get almost no spam using the same 2 plugins. I wonder what’s different bet. our situations that your result would be so diff.?

    As for Gmk’s suggestion to add the e mail addr. to moderation…the problem is that SK2 bypasses WP’s moderations features so if you use this plugin you can’t utilitze these features.

    DavidChait: If you want to check whether BB’s catching legitimate comments how would you do so? Do I have to go to my server & look at BB’s log DB? If so, would you know what the name of the log would be? And if you find you need to adjust it can you do this through the plugin’s settings or some other way?

    As for questions specifically about ‘managing’ BB, I’d check out BB-specific discussions either here or on his site… I don’t/haven’t directly used it myself — the only ‘exposure’ was debugging someone else’s site, where yes, I had to run some SQL queries to find things getting blocked. Whether there’s a better method, I don’t know (I thought there was…). I’m pretty sure it has whitelisting options of some sort.

    “the problem is that SK2 bypasses WP’s moderations features so if you use this plugin you can’t utilitze these features.”

    https://blog.ftwr.co.uk/wordpress/sk2-moderate-plugin/

    Thread Starter richards1052

    (@richards1052)

    In response to Podz, I should’ve said SK2 bypasses the specific features which Gmk was suggesting that I use.

    I’m certainly aware of Peter Westwood’s marvelous work on SK2 & the moderate plugin. I personally use the “first comment moderation” feature he created & it’s one of my most effective defenses against comment abusers. In fact, I believe I was the user who first suggested the idea to him.

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