Use phpMyAdmin or any other DB administration GUI to manually delete the entries from evo_comments.

E.g. you can filter by

type="trackback" and content LIKE "try%"

(the field names are different, not "type" and "content", but the idea should be clear)

thanks blueyed. OK, once i filter them out that way (i can understand that much), how do i actually delete them without having to delete 500+ posts individually and without messing up the coding? I'm new to php and can understand it for the most part when reading it, but haven't played around with it at all yet. thanks much.

goto phpmyadmin and execute this sql-query :

delete from evo_comments where comment_type="trackback" and comment_content LIKE "try%" 

Have you tried using the antispam feature on a common domain name in the spam? Go for the domain.tld part - not the subdomain.domain.tld part as it'll capture a heck of a lot more spams at a time that way.

thank you all so much. I really appreciate it and am trying the php delete command now.

just for info: the above from Topanga is SQL, not PHP.. :)

Happy learning.. :)

ooooooh that felt good.
it wasn't very sophisticated but i'm not very sophisticated.... I just deleted ALL my spam by entering "http:" in the antispam search. 2,228 Xialis, Hairy Jewish Women and Lo-cost Caxsinos Texas Holdem Clittorris Loans all gone just like that. haha!
Don't worry I didn't blacklist "http:" centrally :-)
I lost two genuine comments but it was worth it. This has been taking me hours every week to clean up. My jotter reads like Hunter S Thompson's (RIP) to do list.
Anyway this sledgehammer idea might be useful for others I've seen here asking how to delete comments en masse without much PHP or SQL knowledge.

Before you say it, I'm too terrified to upgrade or tinker with something that works, too much other stuff on my plate right now to deal with even a minor hitch.

www.blueskieschina.com can now show its face at the vicarage again :D (although the Chinese State Environmental Protection Department might not be very happy with me for scraping their air pollution indices... hey well this is China, home of the fake egg...)

PS would it slow the code awfully to be able to enter four character long antispam terms? or would the spammers just start jac kin g off with the spacebar more often?

D681A5 wrote:

... I just deleted ALL my spam by entering "http:" in the antispam search ...

Well done! That'll for sure kill everything spammy since spammers exist to link. The loss of a few real comments is a drag, but a small price to pay to wipe out everything undesirable.

D681A5 wrote:

PS would it slow the code awfully to be able to enter four character long antispam terms?

I don't think it's a matter of speeding up or slowing down anything. Basically 5 characters is the shortest URL there can ever be. ab.cd for example. Recently we decided to not publish anything less than 6. .ab.cd or //ab.cd for example. Anyway if you really want to ban simple words the required hackage has been documented somewhere in these forums. By me I think, so you can use the search feature and eventually find it. If you want.

D6815, thank you a million times over! I have been so swamped with spam on old posts that I was about ready to get rid of b2 all together, even though I like b2evolution. I don't have hours a day to spend deleting comments about teen sex cams or cialis. Anyway, problem solved! And what a simple solution, too.

A round of virtual dim sum, my treat! :)