Make people register before commenting?

  • I am getting lots of comment spam, that I delete (don’t approve). I can’t imagine people are actually running around from blog to blog posting this, so I presume it is automated (or am I naive). Is there not some way to force people to register (and approve the registration) before they post comments?

    Also, I am using WP 1.5.1.2 – could that be an issue?

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

  • Forcing registration just will annoy the real nice people who would post intelligent comments on your blog ??

    Spam is usually trackback spam and yes, automated.
    Use some antispam plugins. Although you might have difficulties finding older versions of those to fit your WP version.
    Good plugins:
    BadBehavior
    SpamKarma

    Of course, an update wouldn’t hurt. WARNING: Upgrade to 2.0.7 – not to the latest 2.1.

    Thread Starter paullima

    (@paullima)

    Thanks for your feedback. How soon do you think it will be before you can say: “Upgrade to 2.1?” If days or a few weeks, would save me an upgrade.

    Out of curiosity, can one force people to register before posting? I don’t see how to do that.

    You mean posting posts or posting comments?

    When? I don’t know…

    Great article, moshu. Sane advice. I wish folks read it before they came here. :>)

    Digg it… spread the word ??

    Thread Starter paullima

    (@paullima)

    I meant can you make people register before they post comments in reply to your blog posts.

    Yes you can. Go to the Admin panel and under Options->General near the middle is the option: ‘Users must be registered and logged in to comment’ just check it.

    Yes, you can, as Ajd777 said above. Although that’s exactly the thing I wrote earlier that you should NOT do: it will not stop any spam but will annoy genuine commenters.

    Thread Starter paullima

    (@paullima)

    I have registered at a number of blogs and posted my comments in reply. However, I know some folks won’t bother to register and comment. But the bigger issue, for me (I get read; don’t get a lot of comments) is the spam. So I am curious, if spam is automated, why won’t forcing folks to register and log-in before commenting stop spam?

    Because the automated scripts don’t use your comment form, they go around it hitting directly the post-comment file.
    It has been exaplained n+1 times…

    There must be a reason that we advise using anti-spam plugins.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • The topic ‘Make people register before commenting?’ is closed to new replies.