After being hit with comment spam over the last couple of days, I’ve gone looking for solutions. I’ve made some changes that hopefully will help.

Automatic’s free email Enkoder: This little goody translates an email address into numeric equivalent gobbledy-gook and wraps it in javascript. The result is a displayable email address that can’t be parsed by most spam bots. And that means I can once again have an actual, clickable email link in the side blog.

Installation is straightforward, although you have to know enough HTML to recognize where to put it: Simply type your email address and a few other fields into the online form, then paste the results into your HTML page where you want the address to appear. Voila!

I’ve also tightened up the rules that determine if a comment is spam or not, I’ve increased the time required between comment posts, and I’ve installed a plugin that uses semi-fuzzy logic to decide if a comment is spam and deletes it if it is. That will keep me from needing to delete every single spam comments. Which sucked.

I thought about installing a captcha system, but there doesn’t appear to be an easily-installed plugin for WordPress yet, and I’m not sure how much hacking I want to do. Besides, captchas can limit accessibility and aren’t 100% guaranteed. If the other measure I’ve taken don’t do the trick, then I’ll look at doing that. But not yet.

I also installed 2 new skins: Fabric Of Our Lives and Seafood Basket. Check ’em out!.