Command-Tab

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 12:59 AM

It’s been nearly two months since I installed Akismet, and it has cut my comment spam down to nothing. Now I can be cool like Dvorak and get “no spam.” As mentioned a few posts ago, WordPress.com is now open to everyone, so now anyone who wishes to use Akismet can get the necessary API key right now. It’s a breeze to install, and does a number on spam. What more could you ask of an anti-comment-spam plugin?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 12:59 am and is filed under Misc, WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 1:57 AM

Mentioned briefly in my post about the comment spam filter Akismet, WordPress.com is out of beta and open to anyone who wants to sign up. Not to be confused with the downloadable version at wordpress.org, WordPress.com is a free Blogger style site where you can create an account and instantly run a blog powered by (you guessed it) the WordPress publishing system.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 1:57 am and is filed under WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Sunday, November 6th, 2005 at 12:52 AM

Akismet is a new comment spam defeating system designed by WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg. Instead of filtering all comments locally, each comment’s data is sent out to the Akismet servers and tested among spam for other sites to create a far more accurate judgment of it’s validity. The only prerequisite is a WordPress.com API key, which can be signed up for at their site. Installation couldn’t be simpler, too. Per their public request, I’ve disabled other comment spam plugins such as Bad Behavior (which may or may not fix RSS issues a few people are having). So far, I’m quite impressed with how easy it is to use. Time will tell if it really works. If you’re interested in using it on your own site, you can check out their FAQ, or go right ahead and download the WordPress plugin.

Update
It’s been 15 days since I activated Akismet and disabled all my other comment spam plugins, and so far I’ve seen only one unmoderated spam comment, while Akismet has blocked 1477 others. Those are impressive results! Also, WordPress.com is out of beta for those interested in getting an API key.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 6th, 2005 at 12:52 am and is filed under WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 at 2:15 AM

I just implemented Gravatar support on Command-Tab. If you haven’t heard of them before (I hadn’t until recently), gravatars are up to 80×80 pixel images displayed alongside your name when you leave a comment on a website.

Gravatars differ from normal avatar images in that they are stored on a server — gravatar.com — and universally referenced by the email address you use to comment, as opposed to uploading the same image to multiple sites. Best of all, signup is free.

Enabling Gravatars was quite painless, with the installation of the WordPress gravatar plugin, and some minor editing of comments.php. The gravatars are visible on any post with comments, and anyone who has not yet signed up will have a default faceless icon (borrowed from digg).

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 at 2:15 am and is filed under WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 3:35 PM

Lately, I’ve been getting a ton of comment spam on Command-Tab. Fortunately, WordPress (combined with an extensive “bad word” blacklist) has been able to catch 100% of it, so you never see it. However, I have to deal with the comments held in moderation and actually delete them. I’m wondering how to stop it altogether…

I’ve considered several options, including challenge/response schemes like a question or a captcha image script, but I want to make it as easy as possible for real humans to leave comments (without registering — I don’t like that idea), but near impossible for an automated machine.

For now, the spam is from a specific few IP addresses, which I’ve blocked altogether by blacklisting them in my .htaccess file. What are your suggestions on stopping comment spam?

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 3:35 pm and is filed under WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.