I have been drowning in spam (not the only one, based on other posts here).
They all have this form:
IP Address: 193.188.77.2
Name:
Email Address: ykqkp51pac6h0@see.it
URL:
Comments:
<h1>allocating:salivate business grownup!disillusioned,contraption rail </h1>
Different IPs, gibberish email, and a random assortment of words that don't mean anything.
In fact, I can't understand the purpose of these comments at all. They don't seem to sell anything.
Anyhoo, I just got back from lunch, and well over 100 of these guys have attached themselves to old posts.
Any suggestsions? I'd like to know if there is a plug-in that can be added to MT that either automatically or manually (but easily) disables commenting on posts more than, say, two weeks old. That would certainly limit the spam dramatically.
Posted by Steve Janke at June 27, 2006 05:24 PM | TrackBackSteve - yes there is a way to close old comments easily. It was an earlier post here that I don't have time to search for now... but this is the gist of it:
*************
Close comments for posts more than 21 days old.
MTCloseComments old="21"
Close comments for posts that are too old to appear on the main index.
MTCloseComments
Close comments for posts that are not on the front page and have been inactive for at least three days.
MTCloseComments inactive="3"
Close comments for posts at least 7 days old and inactive for three or more days.
MTCloseComments old="7" inactive="3"/center>
IMPORTANT! Remember to ad the 's to the tags
It gets placed right before "/MTEntryIfAllowComments" tag and seems to work well.
***************
That's a nearly direct copy from the post in question - I added the word "important" in caps because I just did this 2 days ago and forgot to add the 's which simply made the close comment show up ON my blog instead of closing comments - took me a couple of minutes to figure out what I did wrong.
When I do this I put it in the Main Index Template, rebuild Indexes Only and this closes all my old comments. Generally I go with a 7 day window and this is sufficient to keep the spammers at bay.
Unfortunately I have found that if I leave the tag in there - it will kill any trackbacks (when trackbacks are working and if anyone ever decides to trackback - not too often in my case *grin*)
So, I put it in, rebuild the index, take it out, save and rebuild again. I do it about once a month and this works very well. A month's time is when the spammers generally start in again. Good luck.
Posted by Teresa at June 27, 2006 06:21 PMBlast There are supposed to be those greater and less than signs in there... on the preview they show up, but when I posted they disappeared... let me pull the relevant sentences and use brackets instead and see how that works...
IMPORTANT! Remember to ad the [ and ]'s to the tags.
and
I added the word "important" in caps because I just did this 2 days ago and forgot to add the [ and ]'s
If that doesn't make sense - email me and I'll try it again.
Thanks. This is exactly what I was looking for. Not to worry, I understand where the brackets and whatnots go.
Posted by Steve Janke at June 27, 2006 08:55 PMThanks Teresa.
There's a bug in MT 2.6 (or at least, a design problem) that means that spammers can still spam posts that are closed, but this does help.
Posted by Pixy Misa at June 28, 2006 01:23 AMBy the way, the reason for those spam messages (we think) is that they are marking blogs that don't have spam filters. They'll come back later, see their mark, and know that they can unload their spam on you safely.
Please, is there a way using a similar procedure to, say, delete all comments submitted after a particular date?
Posted by Demosophist at June 28, 2006 02:11 PMBy the way, the reason for those spam messages (we think) is that they are marking blogs that don't have spam filters. They'll come back later, see their mark, and know that they can unload their spam on you safely.
Makes sense. It's like vermin deciding where to nest. I still think one way to deal with this is to get together and offer a bounty on noses. We could also do it on ears, but only if both in a pair are submitted. Otherwise, well you know... blogger bounty hunters would just cheat.
Posted by Demosophist at June 28, 2006 02:26 PM