Controlling Spam in comments/trackbacks

[Blaine Moore]

In a couple days, I plan to wash my hands of my websites and not touch them for a week. I need some time for last minute planning for the wedding, some time to take care of that whole getting married thing, and yet more time to completely not think about printing checks, developing code, keeping networks running, or writing content for my various websites while I cavort in Canada for a few days.

As such, one of my websites is new and has not been noticed by the spammers yet, so I am not too worried about doing anything about comments on there. Its anti-spam activities thus far have been to falsely stop my most frequent reader from ever getting his comments live without my intervention.

My other website gets about 1500 spam comments and trackbacks per day, most of which are caught by akismet. Most of those not caught by akismet get caught by my black list and go to my moderation queue. Every once in a while, a new tool or new way of getting spam out there comes out and for a half hour or so I get a dozen or so spam comments that go live for the 10 minutes or 2 hours or half a day it takes me to notice the emails or the RSS feed full of it.

My question is, what should I do about controlling the spam on my week away? I do not want to turn off comments altogether for the week; I do not get a ton of them, but they have gone a long way with inspiring new content for me and it helps me to know where to direct my rants and raves.

My options that I see right now are:
1. Leave them as is, and hope the filters catch everything. Clean up when I get back.
2. Turn off comments and trackbacks. I don't like this option.
3. Put everything into moderation, and nothing goes live while I'm gone but will be there in a week or so.
4. Put everything into moderation for people that haven't had a comment approved yet - this could confuse new people to my site since they will see other people's comments appearing but not theirs.

Any other suggestions? Any advice on where I should go with it?

[IntuitiveMind]

In a couple days, I plan to wash my hands of my websites and not touch them for a week. I need some time for last minute planning for the wedding, some time to take care of that whole getting married thing, and yet more time to completely not think about printing checks, developing code, keeping networks running, or writing content for my various websites while I cavort in Canada for a few days.

As such, one of my websites is new and has not been noticed by the spammers yet, so I am not too worried about doing anything about comments on there. Its anti-spam activities thus far have been to falsely stop my most frequent reader from ever getting his comments live without my intervention.

My other website gets about 1500 spam comments and trackbacks per day, most of which are caught by akismet. Most of those not caught by akismet get caught by my black list and go to my moderation queue. Every once in a while, a new tool or new way of getting spam out there comes out and for a half hour or so I get a dozen or so spam comments that go live for the 10 minutes or 2 hours or half a day it takes me to notice the emails or the RSS feed full of it.

My question is, what should I do about controlling the spam on my week away? I do not want to turn off comments altogether for the week; I do not get a ton of them, but they have gone a long way with inspiring new content for me and it helps me to know where to direct my rants and raves.

My options that I see right now are:
1. Leave them as is, and hope the filters catch everything. Clean up when I get back.
2. Turn off comments and trackbacks. I don't like this option.
3. Put everything into moderation, and nothing goes live while I'm gone but will be there in a week or so.
4. Put everything into moderation for people that haven't had a comment approved yet - this could confuse new people to my site since they will see other people's comments appearing but not theirs.

Any other suggestions? Any advice on where I should go with it?
[/b]

intersting problem... sounds like an opportunity for a bright plugin author to create a 'I'm on vaction right now' autoresponder that automatically tells your new commenters what to expect, that you're not ignoring them

sorry I couldn't be of more help

[Yaro]

My options that I see right now are:
1. Leave them as is, and hope the filters catch everything. Clean up when I get back.
2. Turn off comments and trackbacks. I don't like this option.
3. Put everything into moderation, and nothing goes live while I'm gone but will be there in a week or so.
4. Put everything into moderation for people that haven't had a comment approved yet - this could confuse new people to my site since they will see other people's comments appearing but not theirs.
Any other suggestions? Any advice on where I should go with it?
[/b]

I'd go with either 1 or 4. To be honest as much as I love comments they are starting to become a time consumer that doesn't equate to the value I get from them. I wouldn't be surprised if I turn them off and direct all people into the forums for discussion instead since the spammers have a lot more trouble getting in here and it's group moderated too.

Although if you are just getting that blog going the comments are valuable. Go with option one and maybe ask a regular reader/friend/someone you trust if they would consider moderating them for you while you are away.