Actually – We Are Not Amused
Since last evening, Syntagma has received around 700 spam comments, all of which ended up in our moderation panel.
A large majority of them begin : “Actually i am not an active serfer [sic] …” Well, they could have fooled me.
This has been going on for more than a week. Since none of them has got past the spam traps even for a millisecond, may I suggest these people save a little on their electricity bills and find something productive to do.
Anyone else having problems with this spammer?
Update : In the three minutes it’s taken to write this post, another 10 “Actually’s” have appeared in the panel. It’s a Biblical plague.
Place this at the bottom of your .htaccess file to ban the spamers IP
order allow,deny
deny from 193.93.236.18
allow from all
You can put as many “deny from’s” as you want in the list. You wouldn’t want to do this with every piece of spam you get because you risk banning too many IP’s, but as a last resort against the ‘biblical’ spammers, it’s sometimes the only way.
By Paul Short on January 25th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Thanks, Paul, I’ll certainly do that. I’m used to hundreds of immensely long lists of links coming through, but eliminating these short text ones risks missing some genuine comments caught by our first-comment moderation rule.
By John Evans on January 25th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Paul: I’ve just looked at another 12 “Actually’s” and each one has a totally different IP address. Not so easy to eliminate after all.
By John Evans on January 25th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
John, just get Spam Karma 2 in there, it will squash it in no time… Bad Behaviour if all else fails.
By TDH on January 25th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I’ve got Spam Karma on the server, Thord, but it’s a nightmare to get right. I’m in technology overload right now, so I’ll wait till I’m clear before tackling anything else.
By John Evans on January 25th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
And it doesn’t help to set it to really mean?
By TDH on January 25th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Akismet. We’ve blocked more than 3M spam comments in the last 6 months with Akismet.
By Jeremy Wright on January 25th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
At $200 a month, it would have to justify itself, Jeremy. If that’s per site, we’d pass on that one.
By John Evans on January 25th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
The commercial license is one key you can use however you want.
In terms of “worth it”, put it this way: how much is your time worth? If you figure it’s worth at least 40 pounds/hour (which is an easy number for someone of your talents to hit), then you only need to save like 3 hours a month for it to be worthwhile to you.
The real thing it brings is peace and a reduction in stress. With 50 blogs, you’re probably getting tens of thousands of comments you need to read through to ensure they aren’t real / pulling spam coments off the blogs. That’s too much wasted time.
By Jeremy Wright on January 25th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I suspect you’re right, Jeremy. I’m a frugal old sod, though
However, it’s certainly on the list for implementation, and our “Actually” friend has probably pushed me over the edge this time.
By John Evans on January 25th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
So am I, so I understand. Just telling you what pushed me over the edge
By Jeremy Wright on January 25th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Matt Mullenweg behind it all [allegedly]
By John Evans on January 25th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Hmmm. That sucks. They’re using random IP’s.
Jeremy is right though. With a growing network, right now the Akismet investment may seem a little steep, but in the long run the peace of mind is worth it.
By Paul Short on January 29th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Yep. We’re upgrading to 2.1 now and rolling out a new design, so it would be a good time to switch.
By John Evans on January 30th, 2007 at 8:59 am