(Hopefully) the end of comment spam.
Yesterday I installed the reCAPTCHA Wordpress plugin.
reCAPTCHA is a capatcha (those funky letter things some sites have you type in) that helps to digitize books.
Even after I set my blog to only allow comments from registered users, somehow I still got spam. I installed Akisment spam filtering for Wordpress, and while it caught all spam, I still had to go through and delete it.
I wanted to catch spammers before they post their comments, and that is why I installed reCAPTCHA.
reCAPATCHA works by giving you two words to type in: one it already knows, and one it found in a book but can’t read by itself. By you spelling the word it knows correctly, it assumes you have spelled the other word correctly as well. Every time a user types in the spelling of a word, it becomes more and more certain about the spelling.
I’ll write an update in a week or so telling the results.
Click here to stop spam and read books with reCAPTCHA.
UPDATE (9/27/07): No spam yet, so I am allowing unregistered users to post comments. I had turned on that option as the first measure against spam. It didn’t stop work; it only discouraged real people from posting comments.
Daniel Errante said,
Wrote on October 13, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
I’m human!!
It looks like a good tool. I am still debating whether using a captcha for my blog or keeping Akisment because it does work very well.
Glenn (admin) said,
Wrote on October 13, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
I suggest using both. There can still be human submitted spam with a captcha, and if there is, Akismet will catch it.
A captcha is a preventative measure, while Akismet is a safety net; they both work very well together.