Every few days I get slammed with 30+ "comments" for drugs and porn, and while that may not sound like many excess comments, it's a pain in the ass to go through deleting them one by one, when I had logged on to post something worthwhile.

I'm open to any suggestions, short of shutting down comments (which I've done temporarily). I've browsed the forums here, and tried the image-based comment-spam-blocking solution, but with no success. (Everything was installed/edited into the templates etc., but the image would not generate in the comments field.)

Omni-Curious

try mt-blacklist

See Concerning Spam on Learning Movable Type.

The blacklist is the single most effective thing you can do, but there are some other easy spam fighting steps you can take as well.

I had looked at that, but I have concerns about a few things - first and foremost, probably 90% of the spam comments left on my site consist of "hi this is (fake name) great site see ya" and the actual link to the spammer's product is in the link field...if that makes any sense. So it sounds like MTBlacklist would miss those comments (from what I've read) and I would be back to moderating them on a case-by-case basis, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

And if I were to somehow set the filter to watch for those fake accolades, then I run the risk of blocking genuine comments.

***

Ok, reading up on those links you've left...maybe I misunderstood the whole blacklist operation. I will definitely give it a shot. Thanks!

if you blacklist the domain, it will stop the comment from being posted. try it before you knock it.

I found that only certain posts of mine were being targeted by spammers. I solved it by tuning off comments only on those threads, which seems to have stopped in for the time being.

Yeah, the blacklist is a nice idea if you have a finite number of domains to block. The problem is that with automated routines and many spammy Web sites, you can be totally overrun and having to manage the problem and constantly rebuild the site. One of my sites is so large that rebuilding it takes a few dozen minutes, so blacklist isn't an issue.

Glenn, have you tried mt-blacklist? When it makes a change, you only need to rebuild the affected entries, and the blacklist does that automatically. The only maintenance that is really needed to keep up the blacklist is periodically getting the new blacklist from their site and pasting it into the system to see if they've caught anybody who hasn't been to your site yet.

Just thought I'd clear that up, because blacklist has been a god-send for me!

Kristine

If they are all coming from the same IP address you can go into mySQL and delete all of the comments from that secific IP address pretty easily.

- Matt

Mt blacklist misses nothing.

I installed it, (easy! I swear, even I could do it!) and when done you get a url under every comment email notification asking that if it is spam to set it loose.

There are a couple settings, but I just always have it remove the comment entirely, it adds all the urls to the balcklist. I've hadm mails with upwards of 40 urls in them linked to words and it got them all. Didn't even blink.

It's easy easy easy. It works. Period.

I'd have to agree that MTBlackList is great. I was getting hit by spam big-time and found this gem. You do have to update it every so often, but it's a small price to pay for spamless comments. Another nice feature is that on the Main MT page, if you click on the "View Activity Log" link it will show you the spam that BlackList is stopping along with the other activity on your page.