a lot of spam lately
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i am getting an ungodly number of spam comments all of a sudden…some that get approved (which should not happen, according to my settings), some that do not (mostly not, thankfully).
why am i getting all these spam messages all of a sudden? what can i do to limit them?thank you!
michelleThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Michelle,
I took a look at your settings, and you’re right that no messages should get approved except by you personally (unless you recently changed that setting?). I’m sorry to hear that some are getting through. Do you happen to know off hand which ones were somehow auto-approved?
In regards to the rest of the spam, the fact that they are either being auto-discarded or going to your spam folder means that Akismet (our anti-spam technology) is working exactly how it is supposed to. The only thing that I can suggest that you do is for you to continue to mark any spam that does make it through as spam so that we can continue to update our filters.
As for why you’ve had this uptick in spam, I find that it usually happens when someone becomes established that the spam becomes more of a problem. Your name starts appearing on more and more lists, and so you get ever-increasingly more spam. It’s like old email addresses that eventually get thousands of messages a day.
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no, i haven’t changed that setting. i should definitely be approving before anything goes through.
i don’t know off hand which ones were auto-approved because i deleted them right away and also deleted the email notification of the comment…sorry i can’t be more specific.
per your suggestion, i’ll continue to mark the ones that come through as spam as such. i suppose it’s a good thing that i’m becoming more established ;)
thanks for your prompt response. i really appreciate it!
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Of course! And if you happen to get any more that come through as auto-approved would you please let me know (and just unapprove them if that option is available to you). I would definitely be interested is seeing those.
Thanks in advance for that, and in the mean time have a great week!
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okay, just got another one. i unapproved it, and copied/pasted for you to see. (i’m not sure if i marked it spam after i unapproved it…)
***the spam mostly seem to be on old posts. this one was from a january 2012 post. ???Just cause it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not super hefllup.
More information about Norm
IP: 190.78.125.252, 190-78-125-252.dyn.dsl.cantv.net
E-mail: (email visible only to moderators and staff)
URL: http://xyanzvbc.com
Whois: http://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/190.78.125.252 -
I can’t seem to find that one in your comments. Could you please go to it and click on the history link and then copy the URL in your location bar and send that over to me? That will allow me to link directly to it.
Thanks!
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No, what I need from you is a bit different. Here, I made a couple of screenshots:
Go to your comment moderation page (Dashboard >> Comments). Hover over the comment in question and you’ll see something like this:
On the page that follows, do like so:
That will do it!
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That’s exactly what I needed! If you get any more, please send them my way. The more the better. I’m putting this in front of the developers, but the more information they get the easier it is for them to track down problems.
Thanks again for your help!
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i’ll send any i get.
and thank you so much for your fantastic help. i really appreciate the customer support.
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You’ve been a trooper through all of this and *I* really appreciate it! Bear with us, I hope to get a solution here eventually. :)
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Hey Michelle,
I’ve been thinking about this, and I spoke with a friend in our spam department who pointed out that there may be a setting which is why some of the comments are getting through without you approving them.
If you go to Settings >> Discussion, in the area we discussed before; “Before a comment appears”, you should have the top box checked. Not the bottom one, but the top one. That should force the system to check with you for each comment before it goes live.
I have no idea how I missed that one. I’m so sorry!
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but if i check the first one “comment must be manually approved” won’t that mean i have to manually approve *every* comment as it comes in???
{and not that i have a crazy amount of comments ;) but still…}
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That was why I was reaching out. I wanted to establish how you wanted the approval process to go. Do you want to approve commenters the first time they come and comment? Do you want anyone to be able to comment at all?
I realized I hadn’t really established what you wanted from the system. :(
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i want to approve the first comment, and then following comments approve automatically.
just so i’m clear, if i allow anyone to comment {without first-comment approval} that invites more spam, yes?
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Yes, it does indeed. Our anti-spam system should catch some-if-not-all of the spam which is submitted, but as with any system there will always be edge cases which make it through.
I see that you’ve changed your settings. I think what you’ve got now will make you much happier!
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i’m not sure if my settings got reset somehow or what. i’ve always had it set to need approval on first comment. when i went to check it again yesterday, there was nothing checked. ???not sure how that happened.
anyway, hoping this resets things.
thanks for your help, for your patience, for your very prompt attention. any time i’ve needed support, wordpress has always come through. thank you!
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That is strange, because that is one of the things I was a bit struck by in the first place. I thought your choice in settings odd!
Well I really am sorry for not clarifying way back then. We could have gotten this all sorted way easier. :P
Hope you have a great rest of your week!
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