Blog Exercises: To Comment or Not to Comment

In the September 20, 2013, issue of the New York Times, an article caught my eye called “No Comments.” It is also available on Umano via mobile app or desktop for a listen. The article by Michael Erard discusses comments on the web, including a long look back at the history of interactivity on the […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]

Do Not Delete Comment Spam. Mark Spam as Spam.

Is comment spam one of the things that gets you down? Are you taking it personally? Are you confused by comment spam and how to handle it? I’ve been speaking at a variety of meetups lately on web publishing, blogging, and podcasting, and the topics often turn to managing comments and comment spam. “I’ve started […]

18+ Things You Can Do on the WordPress Comments Panel

The WordPress development and UI team put a lot of work into WordPress comments. Did you know there are 18 features to a single WordPress comment not counting the comment content itself? Rarely do we stop to consider these powerful features in WordPress, so let’s take time now to understand all the different features and […]

Blog Struggles: When Are Too Many Comments Too Many Comments?

Recently, what appeared to be a thoroughly delighted fan went through my blog with a vengeance and left over 40 comments within a two day period. Each were personalized and directed to me, with enthusiastic comments and reflections on what was written. At first I was pleased, as I always am when my blog touches […]

Fighting Comment Spam: WordPress Comments Mass Edit Mode

Every once in a while, the comment spammers win. Just a little. They use new techniques, new IP addresses, some method that slips by Akismet and other comment spam fighting tools. Your Comments Panel overflows with comment spam. After marking 10 or 20 as comment spam, your natural inclination is to fire off an angry […]

Attack of the Mean Commenter: Blocking Commenters and Comments on Your WordPress Blog

By now, you all should know that you have total control over your blog’s comments, right? You can choose to allow only registered users to comment, delete any comment you want, edit any comment, and do the same for trackbacks. While it helps to have a good comments policy, you still have total control over […]

Comment Spammers Never Stop, Even When Your Blog is Down

Just a reminder. If you let your comment spam fighting stop for even a few seconds, comment spammers will get into your blog. As many users are upgrading to the newest version of WordPress, their comment spam fighting guard is down as WordPress Plugins must be deactivated during the upgrade, and sometimes a few glitches […]

Akismet: All Our Comment Spam Fighting Eggs in One Basket

Recently, Blog Herald’s Abe Olandres wrote “Are We Betting Our Blogs on Akismet?” and he’s right. Most of us running WordPress practically rely on Akismet to combat spam and according to its overall stats, 93% of all comments are spam (the real figures would be a bit higher than that). Today alone, there are close […]

WordPress Plugins for Comments

There are so many WordPress Plugins that deal with blog comments, I’ve been working on this post since a month before this month long series on WordPress Plugins began. I’ve not covered all of them, so please include your favorites and why in the comments below. There are so many things you can do with […]

Winning the Battle Over Comment Spam: Akismet and Search Engines?

Brian Turner asks “Should search engines use Akismet?”, a fascinating question and one that could revolutionize the revolution against spammers. …The aim of the automated form spammers is to increase their search engine rankings – by forcing sites to unwittingly publish links which may be used by search engines to improve a sites ranking on […]

Help Stop Trackback Comment Spam Via Google

Akismet is working overtime on this blog to fight off comment spam in all forms. Combined with the community effort of all WordPress.com bloggers, comment spam is caught and rarely released on our blogs. However, I’ve lately spotted some very annoying and frustrating comment spam. It appears to be caught by Akismet, but it shows […]

Do You Care Enough To Keep Your Blog Comment Spam Free?

I was researching an article and ran into a blog that might have had the answer I needed, but I ran from it almost immediately. There were 74 comments on the post of which over 50 of them were comment spam. A quick scroll down the list of penis enlargers, casinos, free views of big […]

Editing Your Blog Comments

I’ve written a lot about comments, how to handle them, respond to them, and some guidelines for posting comments. One aspect of comments rarely covered indepth is the issue of editing your comments. Not “your” comments left on other blogs, but the comments you receive on your blog. As a general rule, you can judge […]

One Year Anniversary Review: Comments on Comment Spam

Comment spam is one of the biggest blights on the Internet. As far as I’m concerned, comment spam is the single most despicable and destructive force on the Internet today. Yes, we have problems with censorship, government infringement, copyright infringement, and other abusive issues, but comment spam is a plague that infests everyone. Part of […]