War against the comment spammers
Comment spam has always been just sort of background noise for me, but lately the increased volume of it is becoming overwhelming. I'm leaving for vacation in a few days and I already dread the cleanup job that's going to face me when I get back.
I'll have to give the spambots credit for being pretty sophisticated. Every time I implement a new "trick" to outsmart them it helps for a while, but they always come back in full force later. They, like, learn or something. Like Cylons.
Anyway, if anyone has any tips that I might not have tried yet, I'd love to hear them. Because I really, really want to avoid having to keep comments open and avoid any kind of authentication step if at all possible, because I know those things can be a pain in the ass. I'm just giving you guys a heads-up, I guess, that they day may indeed come.
Comments
Personally, I don't find the "type the letters from the picture above" to be all that inconvenient and it seems effective.
Anyone wanting to leave a comment should be able to spare the 2-3 seconds that takes. Right?
Posted by: Dan O. | March 22, 2007 09:54 AM
I was going to say the same thing. Just a simple "type these three letters" thing will get past 99.9% of all spambots.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | March 22, 2007 11:34 PM
Akismet very effectively catches about 199/200 comment spams and wrongly quarantines maybe 1 in a hundred legitimate comments (usually due to links within them)- I can recommend it without reservation. However, I've never tried the "type these letters" thingy, and that may actually remove the step where I review and mass-delete the spam (takes me about a minute per 100).
I agree with the others that I have no problem whatsoever typing a couple of letters as confirmation and have never been deterred by that requirement.
Posted by: Will | March 23, 2007 11:07 PM
I'm all for fighting comment spammers, but have you considered getting this degree at fajhuaguads university?
Posted by: Adam | March 26, 2007 04:50 PM