Sorry, but that's the best answer available. 0.9.0.12 is obsolete and has been for quite some time. Even 0.9.2, which was once pretty darned good at stopping spammers, is old news now.

The problem is that spammers work full-time to break antispam methods. That's why you need to keep your blog engine up to date.

I am getting hit by a spam flood too. Over 200 spam in one weekend. I don't think it is a software as such but a person.

If I ban say vigra today and the next day I am getting virggra. What am I to do?

What my wishlist would be is a bulk deletion by keyword.

E.g get rid of all comment with vigra in them.

Baring that a quicker way of deleting comments. There are too many steps.

One technique that many people are using now with blogs (not just b2evo, but wordpress and the others)... is to close out all comments entirely on the blog, and then set up a phpbb (just like this one). Then you put up prominent links to your forum (maybe on your side panel) and an explanation that, "We welcome comments. Please go to our forum and join a discusion (or create a new topic) about any of our postings here on the blog."

You notice that the b2evolution site we are viewing, even does it and (sure enough) we are using it now.

Now, phpbb is not spam proof, but, in my experience even boards that have been around for months (with proper captcha registration) only get a few spammers a day and there are several techniques that slow it down more. One site I manage gets only a few spammers a week (mostly from russia) and the board op just deletes them quickly. Check out the phbb site and you will see that that have done a good job on stopping spammers.

It makes for a great comment solution and you will create a nice community (very quickly) of people talking with each other about your blog topics.

If you ban any given word, part of the banning process is to go through your hitlog and comments to finding matching stuff - and offer to delete them. You can then uncheck whatever boxes aren't appropriate, but by default you would delete all matches. So if you've got a bunch of spam with vigra in it simply ban that word and it'll delete all the offending comments for you.

Plus seriously if you're using 0.9.ANYTHING you need to upgrade. The newer generations are way better at stopping spammers, but it still doesn't have like checkboxes for comment deletion.

The basic antispam plugin works wonders, and ships with b2evolution. Plus there are a couple of different plugins now that focus on comment spam, and I'm pretty sure there is a plugin that makes comments open only to registered members. In other words, upgrading and taking advantage of the tools available you feel best about using can almost completely kill your spam problem.

EdB wrote:

If you ban any given word, part of the banning process is to go through your hitlog and comments to finding matching stuff - and offer to delete them. You can then uncheck whatever boxes aren't appropriate, but by default you would delete all matches. So if you've got a bunch of spam with vigra in it simply ban that word and it'll delete all the offending comments for you.

The problem with me is I am being hit with someone selling soma which is four characters and the length required here is five.

EdB wrote:

I'm pretty sure there is a plugin that makes comments open only to registered members.

I really don't want to do that.

I tried a plugin which is a simple turning test. It sort of works. I am going to upgrade it. Can you suggest something please?

hi bernard,

What is your turing test plugin?

Thanks for the others for your answer, but as I said, I don't have time to spend on that, also considering that I am not sure if the current URL of my posts will remain the same on the upgraded version, will it?

Thanks,

Salutations,

Fred

bernard zimmermann wrote:

... I tried a plugin which is a simple turning test. It sort of works. I am going to upgrade it. ...

OW! Stab me straight through the heart! What doesn't work about it? AFAIK there is no way a random spammer - the automated bot-kind - can get through my turing test plugin. So what's not working about it?

----------------------------------------------

neoasimov: sorry friend, but your version is obsolete. Look at it this way: keep your current version with hacks and eat a lot of spam, or upgrade and keep your content without eating a lot of spam.

AFAIK - and I could be wrong - but as far as I know your blog settings and therefore your URLs won't change just because you upgrade. Hacks you've made to core files will be obsoleted with no easy way to upgrade them. The core files have been overhauled twice since that version came out. For example you've probably got a folder called "admin" and another called ... um ... "b2evocore"? Whatever it was, they're both gone. EVERYTHING is different on the inside now.

Your skin won't work either. Way out of date, and no easy "here do this" to get it up to the current version. So you'll have to pick something similar and dial it in, or work your butt off to make your skin work in the latest version. Oh and an old skin will completely fail with the new version. You won't even get close to a properly displayed blog page.

But it's the content that matters most right? Your content won't be altered, and I'm pretty sure your linkage won't change. The look and feel of your web is important too, but what's the most important? Which important part are you willing to give up on a little to gain in the other important areas?

EdB wrote:

OW! Stab me straight through the heart! What doesn't work about it? AFAIK there is no way a random spammer - the automated bot-kind - can get through my turing test plugin. So what's not working about it?

In the plugin it states the following at the end. "With the recent birth of b2evolution 1.8 and the native captcha plugin that is included with it, I've discontinued comments on this post. Any remaining questions regarding the use of this should be directed to the b2evolution forums."

Which native plugin is it that now provides captcha and how do I set it up please?

EdB : right, I will put some time in it then ;)

Thanks,

Take care,

Fred

bernard zimmermann wrote:

Which native plugin is it that now provides captcha and how do I set it up please?

Visit [url=http://manual.b2evolution.net/Plugins/captcha_img_plugin]Captcha Plugin[/url].

Okay I think I get it. You're talking about a HACK - not the plugin. I did STT as a hack way back when, but bagged it because it's pointless to support a hack for an obsolete version.

http://wonderwinds.com/hackblog.php/2007/01/07/turing_test_plugin is the PLUGIN that does the same thing.