Robot and Will Robinson -- Lost in Space

I’ve activated a new WordPress plugin to try and stop a specific type of comment SPAM I’ve been having to deal with recently.

This is the second time I’ve tried this plug-in…the last time I quickly learned it was blocking some of my regular visitors from commenting. If it doesn’t do its job correctly this time, it will be eliminated!

Please let me know if you receive any strange messages or are not able to leave a comment or reply.  I appreciate your help!

UPDATE: The testing failed, the plugin has been disabled and we are still lost in space.

 

12 Comments

  1. This is a test comment to determine if the a SPAM comment plugin is allowing normal comments to be entered.

  2. Here is my test comment via a Samsung Chrome Netbook.

  3. Here is one from my laptop.

    • Thanks, Monte, for testing this. Tom had a problem with a comment…I think I’m just going to can this plug-in.

  4. Worked this time, Earl.

  5. Tried a longer comment and got the error.

    • Thanks, Tom. I’m going to delete this plug-in…it’s too sensitive. I’ve been receiving several SPAM comments each day which appear to be manually entered. They get by my other SPAM filter and go to moderation and then I must manually mark them as SPAM. I was hoping this plugin would catch them…which it does…but it’s much too sensitive.

      I appreciate the help.

  6. I am not sure what plugin you were trying Earl, but it seems none of them stop the actual human spammers. Although I hate to turn on moderation for everything, the thing that bothers me most is these human ones end up getting their crap sent to anyone that subscribes to comments, ultimately discouraging people from doing so.

    The picture brings back great memories of that show! :-)

    • Mark, the plugin is WP-SpamShield by Scott Allen. I’ve run some of his other plugins and have been very pleased. While testing this plugin, it did seem to stop almost all of the manual/human SPAM comments but at the cost of stopping some of the valid comments from regular visitors as well. I have MP set to moderate comments but I only have to approve a users first comment and their followup comments are posted automatically, unless something changes.

      Today I signed into MP and there were five human SPAM comments waiting for moderation…that’s become about normal…five every 24 hours.

      Yeah, I loved Lost in Space!

  7. Well, I guess that I don’t get to test again. Last time it said that my messages were “spammy”. I like Spam, but didn’t realize that it could leach into my messages! :D

    • Sorry, you didn’t arrive in time for the test, Paul! :-) It was a quick failure and so I’ve given up on trying to automatically catch these manual human SPAM comments. SPAM can be good but this SPAM leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. ;-)

  8. Hi Earl,

    I’m sorry to hear you had an issue with WP-SpamShield. (I’m the developer.) During the time period you were testing it there was a bug that caused that particular problem for some users. It has since been fixed. I understand if you don’t wish to try it out again. But if you do, I’m available for tech support…feel free to email me. Most people are really happy with the plugin and I want to make sure it’s working for everyone. So far I’ve been able to fix 100% of the problems that have been brought to my attention.

    Anyway, thanks for your time. Have a good one!

    – Scott