On my blog I’ve had to take what I consider maximum, or perhaps even extreme, measures to minimize spam. I use captcha’s, which I don’t particularly like, as well as mandatory approval for comments along with shutting off comments after 30 days. Oh, and I’ve also commented out the code that allows for trackbacks and pingbacks. It was the combination of these measures that finally gave me some peace-of-mind.
Back during the month when I finally implemented all of these anti-spam methods I had received over 400 spam messages via various methods. It was filling up my mail box and getting really annoying. Mostly it was the time wasted while glancing at each message to weed out legitimate comments from junk before deleting it. Now I’m down to around six or so spam comment posts per month, and while this is still annoying is a much more manageable number.
I’ve gradually accepted that I won’t be able to completely eliminate spam (argh!). And, there are several downsides to this heavy handed approach. Now, every time I upgrade to a new version of WordPress I have to re-comment out the trackbacks and pingbacks PHP code. If I don’t, I start getting spam again within 24 hours. Also, if someone wants to post a legitimate comment after 30 days they won’t be able to.