Spam not being deleted

[ep2012]

Hi,

I think this is a new forum (since I last looked that is), so I'm excited to FINALLY be able to get some WP questions answered.

Ok, so I recently found one of my blogs has accumulated almost 300 posts of spam. I can't delete them all at once b/c there may be clean posts in there, so I have to do this page by page.

But when I go to delete the users who wrote the spam & then on the next page it has the default "delete all posts associated from this user", I do that & the spam posts written by them don't disappear.

What am I not doing right, or is this a bug?

Thanks


Michelle

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Did ya remember to tick the checkbox in front of their spam posts? Actually a little bit quicker way is:

a. If you have a bunch from the same IP,
Click the IP address under their user name.
Changes to list of their posts.
Bottom and top has a box to select all, click it.
Bulk action, Mark as spam.

b. If they use the same word
While in the pending comments screen, put that work in the search box top right, search.
Compiles list of all posts with that work.
Proceed as above.

Do you know about discussion blacklists?

[ep2012]

Hi,

I don't think you understood me. I was deleting the user & that should allow me to delete all of their posts (spam, not spam, etc.) UNLESS b/c the in the "spam" area, they aren't really considered "posts"? Is that what the problem is?

No, didn't know about the IP trick.

They aren't in the pending status, I found them all in the "spam" area which I guess is a good thing, except they all accumulated :)

No, what are discussion blacklists? Educate me :)

Thanks


Michelle

[ep2012]

Cool, so I did that, but b/c there's sooo many, I have to scroll thru 4 different pages. Why doesn't WP allow us to see all the posts on one long page?

Also, I'm now realizing the same mother registered with multiple user names, so how can I delete them from my registrants? To copy & paste each one would take forever & why doesn't WP have a BAN feature for the e-mail addys, IP addys or user names?

Thanks


Michelle

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Settings --> Discussion
Scroll down to blacklist section.
You can blacklist words, email addresses and IPs in the box. One entry per line.

If they are a real PIA, you can use .htaccess file to ban the IP but be aware that if they have dynamic IP someone else who is legit could get that IP and not be able to post a comment. Banning a country or IP range has the same problem.

Why are you letting people register as users? Why aren't you monitoring user registrations if you are allowing them?

In the spam section,
You can scan the listed spam canned comments, if they are all garbage go to the bottom, check Author, select Delete Permanently from the Bulk Action dropdown.

If it is a valid comment that put in the spam can by accident, mouse over the comment and 2 links appear, Not spam, Delete Permanently. Not spam will put the comment in the pending side. Go over to Pending and approve.

[a53mp]

Make sure you have akismet enabled.. I also use AVH First Defense with the different methods they have enabled.. that alone stops over 10k spam comments on just one of my sites.

To get rid of comments.. MOST people who comment who are not spamming will not add URLs to the comments.. so once way to do it would be delete * from _comments where the url field is not empty... sure, it's possible you might lose a few comments.. but chances are it's not going to be that big of a deal.

[a53mp]

You can also change the amount of comments per page .. and trust me, 4 is nothing. I had to work on a few sites that had over 1500 pages of comments

[ep2012]

Settings --> Discussion
Scroll down to blacklist section.
You can blacklist words, email addresses and IPs in the box. One entry per line.

If they are a real PIA, you can use .htaccess file to ban the IP but be aware that if they have dynamic IP someone else who is legit could get that IP and not be able to post a comment. Banning a country or IP range has the same problem.

Why are you letting people register as users? Why aren't you monitoring user registrations if you are allowing them?

In the spam section,
You can scan the listed spam canned comments, if they are all garbage go to the bottom, check Author, select Delete Permanently from the Bulk Action dropdown.

If it is a valid comment that put in the spam can by accident, mouse over the comment and 2 links appear, Not spam, Delete Permanently. Not spam will put the comment in the pending side. Go over to Pending and approve.

Sorry for the delay.

1. You aren't supposed to let people register? I didn't even know there was a way to screen registrants & even if I did, how would I know a good user from a spam one? Please do tell.

2. I started to put their e-mail addys on the blacklist, but you & I both know they just register a new one, so I don't see how that is going to help.

3. Yes I know how to delete the spam, I'm just saying with the amount I had in there, it took a while. I thought there'd be a faster way.

As I believe I already mentioned, I thought once you delete the user from WP, that it deletes ALL their posts so I don't have to do it the other way, but clearly that isn't working.

Thanks


Michelle

[ep2012]

You can also change the amount of comments per page .. and trust me, 4 is nothing. I had to work on a few sites that had over 1500 pages of comments

These aren't comments, they are spam.

All comments are approved by me. I WISH I was getting 4 pages of comments LOL


Michelle

[ep2012]

Make sure you have akismet enabled.. I also use AVH First Defense with the different methods they have enabled.. that alone stops over 10k spam comments on just one of my sites.

To get rid of comments.. MOST people who comment who are not spamming will not add URLs to the comments.. so once way to do it would be delete * from _comments where the url field is not empty... sure, it's possible you might lose a few comments.. but chances are it's not going to be that big of a deal.

I'm not a website coder, so I have no clue where to put what you just stated.

What does AVH do with the spam? Just delete it, or I have to do the same thing I'm doing now, manually delete pages of spam?

Akismet is already enabled. I assume that's what stopped the spam.

Thanks :)


Michelle

[HTMLBasicTutor]

1. You aren't supposed to let people register? I didn't even know there was a way to screen registrants & even if I did, how would I know a good user from a spam one? Please do tell.

You can set it up that people can comment without registering. It can also setup to moderate all comments.


2. I started to put their e-mail addys on the blacklist, but you & I both know they just register a new one, so I don't see how that is going to help.

You can put IP addresses in the blacklist. e.g. Someone from a certain IP is bombing your comments. Click their IP over on the left under their name while in the Pending screen and it will select all the pending comments for that IP and refresh the screen with just the comments from that IP. Select all, bulk spam can them.

You can also put domain names in the blacklist. e.g. they are spamming from different IPs but promoting the same website. In this instance you can still search the pending comments by domain name. Just like the IP search, screen refreshes, select all, spam can.


3. Yes I know how to delete the spam, I'm just saying with the amount I had in there, it took a while. I thought there'd be a faster way.

Once you put something in the blacklist (be it email address, IP or domain name) future comments with anything on the blacklist go straight to Spam. You can go to the Spam screen, click delete Spam and all the comments in the spam are removed permanently.

The other options are:
-ban an IP or IP range. As mentioned previously this could make it so legit people can't get to your site at all.

-put a captcha and annoy your legit readers that can't read the captcha and just leave.

-Those signup using (fill in name) are equally annoying as far as I'm concerned. I don't surf logged into anything and I'm not going to signup up for yet another service just to comment on your blog. You get more comments when someone does it spontaneously. Plus if the service is down that just adds to the PIA factor of leaving a comment.

-use a spam plugin and slow down your blog. There have been reports that Akismet uses crowd sourcing and spam cans some legit commenters (much like banning the IP via the .htaccess file). The GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin claims to be a better alternative but the additional plugin they recommend gave me false positives so I don't use either.

I really don't see these anti spam plugins being any less work than moderating the comments yourself. You still have to go through the spam screen (it the plugin dumps them there instead of just deleting them) and cruise the comments looking for legit comments that got designated as spam if you want to build your readership.

[ep2012]

Already know you can moderate comments (I have that set on all my blogs), you talked about moderating registrations which is different.

Anyway, thanks

Take care


Michelle

[infinity79]

Hi,

I think this is a new forum (since I last looked that is), so I'm excited to FINALLY be able to get some WP questions answered.

Ok, so I recently found one of my blogs has accumulated almost 300 posts of spam. I can't delete them all at once b/c there may be clean posts in there, so I have to do this page by page.

But when I go to delete the users who wrote the spam & then on the next page it has the default "delete all posts associated from this user", I do that & the spam posts written by them don't disappear.

What am I not doing right, or is this a bug?

Thanks


Michelle

I suppose you should first apply a Not spam to all the comments that are not spam. That would make them move to the pending folder. Then, simply hit Empty Spam and that's it.

Further more, if you don't want to get automatic comments in your spam folder, simply try installing NoSpamNX plugin. It works just perfect.