Sudden MASSIVE amount of SPAM comments
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Until the past two weeks I have had only a few SPAM comments a month. Now suddenly, I am receiving a MASSIVE amount of SPAM comments a week!
Now the Spam plug-in for WordPress works very well in that these comments go the to Spam folder. But I am suddenly getting Hundreds of SPAM comments multiple times a week that I have to manually delete (bulk delete by 20 or so at a time) which is a huge pain. Most of these jerks seem to be advertising drugs. There may be other things, but there are too many Spam comments for me to look at before deleting.
I just turned on the switch to make people register before they can comment, but that is a pain for my legitimate commenters, many of whom are not following my blog, nor may they care to register just to make a comment.
Is there a way for me to have commenters use something like CAPTCHA where they need to click on the Cars, Buses, Street-lights, etc before their comment is accepted. I think that this would be the preferred method for me, unless someone has a better idea.
Thanks!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi bateau4u,
Can I double check which site you are receiving spam comments on — is this happening on missdivinity.wordpress.com or another site?
You mentioned a spam plugin, which suggests you may be using WordPress.org software with another host. Custom plugins are only supported on WordPress.com sites using the Business plan but missdivinity.wordpress.com is using the Free plan.
Once I know for sure, I can point you to the right place to advice.
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Sure, you have my permission. The plug-in I mentioned was installed by WordPress, not by me!
Before posting this, I checked my Spam folder and there is nothing in there. Turning off Comments by anyone who is not registered seems to work. However, as I mentioned in my OP, that is an issue for many of the people who make legitimate comments. but don’t want to register
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Hi!
We do indeed take care of plugins for MissDivinity.WordPress.com
But I am suddenly getting Hundreds of SPAM comments multiple times a week that I have to manually delete (bulk delete by 20 or so at a time) which is a huge pain.
You don’t need to delete them actually; we take care of that automatically after 30 days unless you have specified otherwise. More details here:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/#comment-moderation -
Ah and I misread that, even! But spam is only held in that queue for a few weeks, then we get rid of it automatically. So you don’t need to worry about deleting it.
That setting, by the way, is about whether we automatically delete spam on posts that were written more than 30 days ago.
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The problem is that on occasion, one of the legitimate people who is not registered might make a comment that includes a link to something useful.
However, with the amount of Spam I have been getting there is no way I could possible go through all the Spam to separate the legitimate from the absolutely not wanted so it will get deleted with the junk!
I still think that WordPress should offer something like CAPTCHA so that real people can comment without having to register, while preventing comments from Bots!
Sincerely,
Divinity’s Dad
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Hi there,
We haven’t implemented a CAPTCHA solution on WordPress.com because it discourages people from leaving comments and most importantly makes it impossible for the visually impaired to comment.
The best way to configure your comments is to have people either log-in with their WordPress.com account or fill out their name and e-mail address.
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I wanted to avoid making the readers of my blog register before they are allowed to comment. That is why I posted the OP!
With the amount of Spam I’ve been receiving lately, my blog will be wraking up around 4,000 Spam comments a month. This is not an insignificant number…
As I am not about to read through 4,000 comments to see if any of them are legitimate, it seems they’ll all get deleted in 30-days.
Oh well…
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@bateau4u sometimes even legitimate sounding comments are still actually spam, and sometimes approving one of those comments attracts other spammers like them.
You’re welcome to keep combing through comments; my guess is that most of them are going to be spam.
But note that legitimate commenters whose comments are being lost will sometimes get in touch with us too. So I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
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I’ve been getting over 100 spam messages a day (mostly it seems for CBD) from ISPs that appear to be in Russia.
I blocked them in the comment blocking section, but they are amassing by the hundreds in my trash can. I wish they’d just be stopped there too.
Started Jan 25 or 24th
The ISPs I blocked are
5.188.210.62 4-6-7-8-70There might have been 69 too, I forget (this was from an easier to find note I made to myself)
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Sorry, we really can’t stop that because we can’t control spammers. We can only help make sure they don’t get to post on your site. Please be assured the system is working. The trash empties itself too, so you can just ignore it and it will take care of itself.
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I guess technically you could make the whole site private and invite only the people you care about to view and comment on the site. That really would stop spammers in their tracks, because they would not be able to access the site anymore.
But, short of that, my suggestion is to just not worry too much about the spam folder.
Also, if you have at times “rescued” spam that sounded like a nice compliment, please be aware, many of those folks are spammers too (particularly if their name is Cheap Meds or discount coupons or if they link to a spammy site.) Our system knows how to watch out for those and will mark them as spam for you. If you choose to publish them anyway, it’s possible other spammers think they can fool you, too.
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Too bad you can’t block problem ISPs from wp, even if for a month or 3.
I wonder if anyone tracks them?
I’m grateful for askimet and the ability to block words and ISPs, that made my life a lot easier since this started about a month ago.
Good to know the trash will empty itself (I wish it did at home too).
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Sadly, that would be a bad thing if the IP address were that of a library or public school or internet cafe. We don’t want to block everyone because of a few bad actors.
But we will do all we can to be sure they can’t publish spam on your site. Best wishes! And here’s to self-emptying trash bins (or no trash to worry about) at some point. Cheers :)
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Like you, I was very uncomfortable getting several hundred spam comments a day. I ended up just disabling comments unless the person is registered on my blog.
As I have legitimate visitors from countries around the world, some people just like posting a comment without having to register.
Unless, or until the number of spam comments drops to a reasonable number, I’ll continue to force new commenters to register first.
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