Last night, some time around 21:15, or so, I was hit by a SPAM storm. This has happened before, but the combination of Akismet and Sparm Karma 2 was generally able to keep it bay; however, last night, I suppose the torrent was too great and it caused my site to exceed my CPU allowance on my host. That said, they deactivated my site. This morning I called Bluehost, my hosting company, and asked what I needed to do to get back into business. They said that I had to install a ‘captcha’ plugin.
I don’t know about you, but I absolutely despise, no abhor, no make that – have a deep, visceral hatred for captcha. I find it very annoying when I run into it. It gets in the way of the commenting flow to have to try to read those crazed, squiggly, warped letters and numbers. So, I made a concerted effort to put into place something that would work, yet wouldn’t be an impediment to posting. I found GASP, which stands for Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin. Totally simple in design and function. It’s a simple checkbox that says: Confirm you are NOT a spammer. I’ve surrounded the box, in the above image, with a red rectangle.You’ll see it right below the comment button. If you forget to check it, you’ll be presented with a dialog box reminding you.
I hated to have to add it, but, SPAM is now a way of life and we need all kinds of ways to combat it.
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Yes, captchas are ugly. I was happy with Akismet and Bad Behaviour for quite some time, until the growing amount of spam bypassing this defence lines made me capitulate and resort to retina-post as a not too obtrusive blocker against those ******* spammers. And no, I don’t agree that spam is a way of life, it’s just the manifestation of a parasitic attempt to make money.
Markus recently posted..The Che – A Question Of Age
Yeah, those were working for me, too, but not anymore. What I meant by way of life is that if you have a blog, spam’s gonna happen. We just have to take defensive measures.
I liked your new top banner. It’s very nice and suits the theme very well.
I don’t mind clicking the “Confirm” button but the “captchas” are a pain. It’s too bad we have to resort to stuff like this just to try to stay one step ahead of spammers.
Thanks, Ken. I’m not really sure of which banner you speak because it rotates between 5 or 6 images. You’ll potentially get a different one with each visit.
Yes! Captchas are a pain and certainly can reduce comments because sometimes they are damn near unreadable! I figured that the checkbox was not a bad idea.
I guess it’s the price of fame, my friend.
Chris Klug recently posted..More Unearthed
I suppose so. More like longevity, rather than fame. They find you eventually, if you’ve been around long enough.
I had thought commentluv already came with the check box. Though no big fan of entering crazy text myself and as I get older my eyesight gets worse it becomes even more ridiculous. Sometimes end up cycling to so many different text patterns I’m sure they think that I’m a spammer just trying to get through anyway.
Either way little check box that comes with CommentLuv
Barry Kidd recently posted..Young Artist – Painted children’s hand and foot prints
Hey, Barry. I checked into it and the premium version of Comment Luv does have GASP as part of it; however, the premium version is $67 and both CL and GASP are free! Of course, the premium version has about 6 other plugins combined, too.
I’ve had the same experience with captcha, trying to find something that I could actually read. Since installing this checkbox, I’ve had zero spams entering my pending bucket. Nothing for Spam Karma 2 to do, but it is there, just in case.
Paul, So far I haven’t had to resort to this but there’s always tomorrow. I do like a check box much better then “captcha” and I believe Mark Graf has been using something similar to this successfully for a while as well.
When/if the need arises I’ll know what to look for now.
Earl recently posted..Fast forward — Paused
You’re just way to popular, my friend. I’m not to the point where I’m being affected, showing I’m not as popular. It’s too bad we have a society that does impose it’s self on others. It saddens me when I think about such things. I want to shop when I want, not when someone wants my attention or money.
Monte Stevens recently posted..Morning Light
Couldn’t agree more. Captchas are almost as bad as spam itself. I like your solution much more, or those q&a thingies where you have to answer a simple math question.
Thomas recently posted..Grain storage in the old town of Montréal
Thomas, I started with the simple math question thing, but then looked for something simpler, like I had seen on Mark’s blog. After much searching, I finally found GASP. It’s worked wonders. Since I installed it, I have had zero SPAM enter the comments or even the holding bin. It’s been nice!
Well Paul, welcome to the “Excessive Resources” club.
Quite frustrating when it happens. The last time I was hit with an attack, I had to install yet another “fence” for those guys… a plugin called Bad Behavior. This helps defend against attacks that are not comments.
I wish these things weren’t required either, but such as life in the wild wild net.
Mark recently posted..Winter sunrise on the lake
Thanks, Mark. It was a club that I didn’t really want to join, but sometimes you get nominated and elected at the same time.
I installed Bad Behavior a number of months ago, but I guess that this was something else. At any rate, that checkbox works wonders. Zero spam in several days. I like it! 
I have had the same problem. I did end up getting rid of askimet and adding GASP as well. It makes the user click one extra button but this system is so much lighter and faster than askimet I am not complaining a lot. – John
John Masters recently posted..A Girl & A Dog
I got rid of Akismet, too. Now things are nice and clean and I’ve not had SPAM in several days. It’s nice!
Guess I have not been “discovered” yet so I’m not targeted by a lot of Spam. When a commercial comment DOES appear, I mock it with snarky ridicule and suggest if one needs this product or service, make sure they avoid these asses. Makes me feel better.
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