How to disable comments and/or ban commenters?
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The “spam” functionality appears to be completely useless, I’ve been repeatedly been receiving spam from some people the last couple hours, even though I’ve marked all their comments as spam. So I want to at least temporarily disable comments, how do I go about doing this?
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You can disable comments under options > discussion, but that will not change existing posts or pages, just any made from this point forward. You would have to edit each existing post and page and turn comments off and then save.
Akismet will learn if you keep marking them as spam, but it may take a day or three.
You can also blacklist them by entering their information in the “blacklist” field at the bottom of the options > discussion page. Make sure and click “update options” after entering the information.
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The thing to remember is not to “spam” people who you simply do not want to be able to comment on your blog. Spam only what is real spam.
For banning commenters, always use the blacklist.
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It would be great if wordpress would develop something better than a blacklist, where someone can’t comment. But rather a way to keep the blogger from coming to one’s site altogether (IP Blocking). Especially when there seems to be a huge gray area as to what one defines as stalking or harassment. It would also be great for spam. Why couldn’t askimet block those IP’s so that they can’t spam to begin with? Just a thought :)
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IP blocking does not work.
If on dial up, each time someone connects, they get a different IP from their ISP. The same with most DSL. If you have a power outage, or have to reboot your DSL modem, you get a different IP address. The other day when my ISP was having issues, I had to reboot my modem every half hour, so every half hour I had a different IP address.
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My IP is static, and all those who harass me are static. It can’t be any less effective than a blacklist for comments. What does that do, if the person can still visit one’s blog and harass? Like I said, just thoughts. Seems that a major thorn in wordpress’ side id flamewars. It seems it would benefit them to figure out a way to keep people from visiting someone’s blog. Short of the person who is being harassed going private, which we all know kills a blog. :)
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Put the IP address in the blacklist then. That is exactly what the blacklist is for. All blogging platforms have flamewars and it’s typically related to the subject being blogged about. Hot-button topic breed flamewars. Sadly there are those out there that cannot discuss without getting ugly.
You can always set your blog to private and then only invite those you wish to view your blog.
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Well since ip blocking isn’t working for you try these alternative methods,
If they are using the same name/email/website each time then try filtering out that, or if you notice the same stuff being commented filter out some words that they tend to use a lot.
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I find the askimet spam filter does pick up most blatant forms of spam for me but a few spam-esque comments, usually pushing a commercial site do get through so I tend to push certain web mail domain account comments and specific emails adresses straight to moderation. You could force all comments to moderation so you get to approve comments before publication (options-discussion). I have a list of certain web mail domains and keywords that flag certain comments for moderation.
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