WordPress MU

I'm setting up a new install of 1.5.1, and migrating my users over from single-user 2.1x blogs. I'm concerned about spam, and have done some reading in the forums here about ways to combat it. It looks like these are the options:

MontySpam: My understanding is that this is a commercial plugin. While it may be worth the money, I'm effectively working with a budget of zero.

SK2: This is what we've been using on the single-user blogs. There appears to have been somewhat of a falling out regarding modified versions of this plugin for WPMU, and there are indications that SK2 itself is not long for this world.

Bad Behavior: I'm afraid I don't know much about this, beyond a few horror stories I've read about people getting locked out of their blogs. It looks like that was fixed several versions ago, though. At the moment, and absent better suggestions, this is probably where I'll start.

Farms' Comment Spam Pack: I'm always impressed with James' work, but the July '07 date on this pack makes me nervous. With both spamming strategies and Wordpress changing at a fairly impressive rate, I'm a little worried about using customized older versions of these three tools.

So... can anyone recommend a spam solution that will be reasonably effective with 1.5 code? Thanks for any suggestions.

you listed all the options and they are all still valid. everybody here, uses one of those, some even a combination of those plugins.

just try whatever you like best.

Personally I'd give the montyspam plugin a chance to prove itself. It does not sound like he wants to get rich of that plugin, rather than get a little revenue out of his wok.

Otherwise just try a combination of SK2 (the modified version for wpmu if you can get it) and i.e. Farms spam pack, or BB, its up to you.

Thanks for the quick response. I'm starting with BB and Farms' pack, and we'll see how that goes.

The Farm's pack is just a slight mod of exisitng simple spam plugins. They work well, except for maybe trackbacks from scraper sites. :-/

SK2 was fairly intensive on larger sites, IIRC. At least it became troublesome on mine.

BB is a fave of some other people, but I have tried it. Appears to be quite effective.

I think no one plugin can do it all, but a good combo of two certainly should.

That's helpful, too Andrea. I was a little afraid that multiple tools might step on each other's toes, but it looks like many people are using combinations of solutions effectively.

It seems like 99% of the spam we get is trackbacks.

And most of those are coming not from the site they're linking to but from hyjacked boxes located elsewhere on the net.

That Ip address checker that is in Farms' Comment Spam Pack is a good start.

For a reference, I believe Akismet checks the Ip address of the sending site againsy the Ip address of where the trackback should be coming from first before sending any data to the Akismet servers.

edit: We're using something of our own design in house.

I've had a lot of issues with spam karma on wpmu.

Monty Spam seems promising and I'm testing it out now on one of my installs. So far Mac has answered all my questions very well.

I haven't tried bad behavior.

I'll agree with that. It's promising thus far.

SK2 hasn't been a problem for me, but it's not something I wish to personally continue to use or support after "insert dr. dave's name here" bashed up "insert pumpkinslayer's name here" for modifying it and releasing an MU compatible version (which was well within the said license agreement).

Bad behavior has been pretty good as well.

Using that as a frontline, with an SK2 backup has proved to be really nice. Honestly, BB cuts a lot of it out, which makes SK2 work less. That's a good thing, as SK2 can be a huge hog beast.

I wondered up "updating" to newer version of the plugins in Farms' Comment Spam Pack as it rocks the best for me. For whatever reason, I am still way off spam with it installed than not :)

Trent

I had to disable Bad Behavior when it locked me out of my sites. So I'm loathe to try it again :)

I've got Akismet on my main blog and any that are likely to get comments. The other sites I have are mainly "non-blog" types that use WP as a CMS rather than a blogging platform so comments are switched off on those by default.

So far Akismet has done me proud, the odd spam gets through but as I moderate all comments anyway it's no biggie.

For trackback spam I use the simple-trackbck-validation plugin and it works like a charm. Since I installed I haven't seen any spam in the comments :)

Right, but it still doesn't stop scraper sites, because they are linking to the post from a valid website with other text around the OP content. :)

Just sayin'. :)

(I monitor a sitewide comments feed. I see what gets thru.)

Right, but it still doesn't stop scraper sites, because they are linking to the post from a valid website with other text around the OP content.

You can drop in one of the "display the ip address that pulls the feed' plugins and block on those reports. Plagerismtoday.com has discussed that a time or two if you want to review that site.

Yeah, I was doing that but they're like Hydras. :D