Anti-spam plugins

[Ryan]

I'm about to launch a new multi-site network which would likely require me to pay to use Akismet due to the shear number of spam comments it will receive, which I'd rather not do.

So, I'm trying to find alternatives which will allow me to block as much spam as is humanly possible.


Cookies for Comments looks like it will work fine. The admin page is coded in an old school kinda way (no register_settings), but it seems to be secure at least. The only change I needed to make was to remove the plugins admin page (I don't want end-users having to deal with spam plugins).

Beyond that I'm a bit stumped though. I recall Otto recommending the Simple Trackback Validation Plugin a while back, but it's not coded in a multi-site friendly way so isn't usable.


Any ideas?


EDIT: I've now installed the Stop Spammer Registrations Plugin. I use that service on my forum and it works great. WP plugin looks okay too. Arghh, no it's not ok :( The fixes are pretty simple though so I'll see if I can get the original developer to apply them.

EDIT 2: Some good anti-splog plugin advice .. http://wordpress.org/support/topic/s...ion?replies=18

[Otto]

I use Simple Trackback Validation on Multisite without any problems that I've noticed. Have it network activated. Seems to work okay.

Cookies for Comments is brilliant. I also use it on Multisite.

[Ryan]

I use Simple Trackback Validation on Multisite without any problems that I've noticed. Have it network activated. Seems to work okay.

They work fine. But I bet you aren't allowing untrusted users to create sites on your network, which I'm intending to do. The Simple Trackback Validation plugin in particular looks very insecure for that purpose.

Most of these plugin seem to have bad XSS vulnerabilities when used by non-trusted admins.

[Ipstenu]

I use Bad Behavior, which seems to work pretty well. There's also some plugins for manual moderation...

* http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/moderate-new-blogs/
* http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-activate-users/

[Ryan]

Thanks Ipstenu.

I have a very effective method in place to deal with spam registrations though ... it costs them money to register :P

My concern is with comment moderation. I now have both bad behaviour and Stop Forum Spam running. They've blocked ALL spam so far, but I don't have any proper sites on my network yet, so once I start moving my own ones onto it I'll know for sure if they're doing the job or not. At last resort, I may make a custom captcha plugin or perhaps try the approach that Joast mentioned recently (http://yoast.com/prevent-anonymous-comments-wordpress/) and provide that as an option for anyone who has spam issues. But hopefully that won't be necessary.

EDIT: Here's the plugin Joast recommended ... http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...-email-verify/

[Ipstenu]

Eh, I'm leery about adding MORE layers to making content show up.

A user posts a comment, they expect to see it. I'm not sure how fine the line is between making life easy for real people and hard for spammers :/ Well no. I AM sure how fine the line is. I'm NOT sure which side I'm on.

[Ryan]

Yeah. Joasts method is a little drastic. I'd only use that if it was absolutely necessary. Hopefully I'd find alternative solutions before it got that bad.