How to Not Lose Good Commenters - An Akismet Workaround
I just wrote a workaround for this issue (yay!) Akismet is the most powerful and effective SPAM tool for WordPress, however, it sometimes blacklists good commenters (Rosemarie, my #1 commenter experienced this first hand and I thank her for notifying me of the issue!) . . . read the workaround and join this Online Diarist Forum discussion on Akismet.
I’m posting asides here that link to my more tech-type posts at the forum. After all, the subject of Riley Central is that of an Online Diary. that’s why this post forwards to the article there. I hope you’ll go over and participate. However, If you aren’t interested in the forum, please feel free to comment here on the issue of SPAM comments, Akismet, and general Q&A on blog comments.
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I'm Damien Riley, author and teacher. Here you'll find "think outside the box" posts on psychology and inspiration. 
“Akismet is the most powerful and effective SPAM tool for WordPress”
I’ve found mostly the opposite to be the case. Akismet has one of the worst false positive ratios of the tools I’ve seen used. I’ve written about it several times with specific examples and even discussed the issue with Matt. He said my experiences — not that different from Rosemarie’s — were “statistical anamolies” or something like that. Riiight, that’s why I keep reading stories like these from people I don’t know.
The most effective solution for dealing with comment spam? An accessibility-friendly captcha like recaptcha along with a hardened trackback plugin that checks for two-way trackbacks before approving and blocks the obvious spam keywords (and if I shared what those were here, I’d upset just about any spam filter worth its salt, so I’ll pass). Note: removing the CAPTCHA requirement for commenters after a few comments is advised so it doesn’t annoy/irriate repeat contributors.
If you want to get rid of the spam, you need to make it difficult for the machines, but keep it easy for humans. Human entered spam — which is becoming more popular — can only be effectively stopped by comment moderation.
TDavid, thank you so much for that! I tend to be a religious WordPress zealot, sometimes to my own detriment. I really dig what you are saying man and I am tempted to try it. Do you have a particlular trackback plugin or method you’d recommend in concert with Captcha? Also, I feel lower and not worthy that you talked to Matt!! I have a lot of respect for the guy.
I’m fortunate enough that I haven’t had spamming problems. I’m sure the longer your blog is around, the worse it gets though.
Though I have excellent spam programs there's no way I can work around people using phony names and the courting address or the first part of my email address
Two weeks ago was a particulary virulent one–had to delete over 20,000 over the course of the week
Ended up deleting most of my gmails–including some very important can't be replicated ones
That's one reason blog fatigue sets in
The second reason is that no matter where I go–vacation right now–I have to take my blog with me simply to delete the spam
Not really a vacation, trying to sell my book–which means perfecting the chapters before hitting agents as I am obsessive and care much about quality
I used to be obsessive about keeping my blog up to date and did blog seven days a week for two blogs
On the other blog felt obligated to cover for people with spouses and/or kids.
One day woke up and thought, wait I have a life also and am learning to put me first, but that's difficult
Have found that things I say, even if offhand tend to live in search engines
Personally I care more that people read than comment but that's just me, and I guess I can afford that
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