help please: Cannot remove huge amount of (spam) comments

Just to ask, have you activated Akismeth ?

I’m not sure what Akismeth is…

im not even sure what askimeth is ..

that sounds like something you say when you visit a dope dealer.

Its called “askimet”

oh, I see, Akismet. I don’t see how that will help me in my current predicament which is first to clear out the hundreds of spam comments in my moderation queue. I also am not clear how that would relate to controlling spam on WordPress.

..since WordPress cannot support me in dealing with this problem

If you are not satisfied with the responses you receive via this forum.. that which is offered up for free..

You can always get paid support from them — I understand its like $75.00 an hour.

I also am not clear how that would relate to controlling spam on WordPress.

its a spam plugin. it has everything to do with it.

That said, I dont use it so I dont know if you can make it work retroactively on comments you have already gotten.

Is there a reason you cant just remove the comments from the database directly?

I have finally figured out a way to resolve this. Under “Comments” I see there is a way to do a mass delete with 20 comments at a time. I was only looking under the Awaiting Moderation section.

I don’t know why someone from WP could not simply tell me this!

Oh well. Cheers, Renee

I don’t know why someone from WP could not simply tell me this!

who would that be? This is user <-> user support. ??

Well I guess I had the impression that some WP moderators were on hand for addressing issues. Anyhow, at least I sorted it out! Renee

*sigh*

Moderator <> Instant expert || programmer

Moderators… well, we moderate. Sure, we answer posts where we can but do remember we’re also unpaid users, just like you.

okay, sorry folks. I had the impression that there were WP staff who moderated and helped to jump in. clearly this was a simple issue to resolve. However, I continue to get dozens of spam comments each day which require me to delete them. If there is a way to put in a spam control plug-in using Akismet, would you mind telling me how I can go about it? Many thanks. – Renee Rose

Renee – do you have the Akismet plugin installed? It comes with WordPress. You just need to visit plugins, activate it and provide an “API key” for it (just follow the links on the plugin page).

Here’s a copy/paste of some common spam advice:

Install and activate Akismet or Spam Karma 2. Then install and activate Bad Behavior.

https://akismet.com/
https://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/
https://www.bad-behavior.ioerror.us/

For those who struggle with the Akismet directions: https://wordpress.com/api-keys/

See also the Combating_Comment_Spam page in the Codex.

thanks. this is sort of embarrassing but I cannot locate my API key; it’s not where it states it would be on my profile page. On my profile page, there is no line stating what the API is; I cannot see this anywhere on my account info or dashboard. Maybe this is because of my version. To make matters worse I cannot seem to find the original welcome email from WordPress when I set up my blog two years ago… Is there some way to get this API again?

Renee,

First, I’m a regular user just like you who had to learn pretty much everything from scratch.

Second, be nice to the people here. They don’t get paid, they’re just volunteering. You’re going to have a lot of questions in the coming months, so don’t piss them off or no one will pay attention to your posts. Just a bit of advice.

Third, to get your askimet key you have to sign up for a wordpress.COM account. It’s different from the www.remarpro.com you use on a self-hosted blog.

You don’t have to pay or anything, you don’t even have to use it, but by signing up you automatically get an Askimet Key. It will probably be in the email you get sent when you sign up and I believe it will also be listed in you WordPress.COM profile. Copy it, go to your www.remarpro.com dashboard, and then put you key number in the appropriate form. Click “activate” for the Askimet plugin.

Oh, now I see you already have a .COM WP.
Check under your profile. Or, maybe just set up another account.

Thanks, ChgoWriter. As I said, I apologized for my misunderstanding that there were WordPress staffers who moderated these forums. I really do appreciate the input.

There is no API key listed in my profile, no matter where I look. contrary to the documentation on API Keys, there is no statement reading, This is your API Key… So I wonder should I set up a new account, and does it matter if I use a different API Key with a different account?

I find the different accounts rather confusing; I have one for participating in this forum but it doesn’t work on the global dashboard log in. I feel really like a newbie and really naive!
Thanks, Renee