Important
As of January 1st, 2009, I am no longer developing, maintaining or supporting Spam Karma. If you want to contribute to its code or download the latest GPL release, you can check out the code repository, over at Google Code.
Thanks.
1. Overview
Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is an anti-spam plugin for the WordPress blogging platform. It is meant to stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters. Spam Karma 2 is the proud successor to Spam Karma, with whom it shares most of the development ideas, but absolutely none of the code
2. Requirements
- WordPress: SK2 requires at least WP 1.5.1 (or up). It is compatible with all versions of WordPress up to the latest release (2.1).
- mySQL: 4.0 or up is strongly recommended (some important functionalities might not work otherwise).
3. Installation
Install is the easiest ever:
- download the archive
- unzip and drop the whole SK2 folder, as is, in your
pluginsdirectory. - Enable the plugin in the WP Admin >> Plugins section.
- Browse to WP Admin >> Manage >> Spam Karma 2.
(Note: if you are upgrading from a previous install, simply overwrite the older files with the new ones in the instructions above)
Please check SK2 GPL repository for any potential downloads.
4. The Aftermath
Everything worked? Good.
Not quite?
Just check out the FAQ & Troubleshooting Page, your answer might be there. Otherwise, you can try WP.org support forums.
For bug-reports exclusively, you can contact me using this online form (do not use the old support email account: it is no longer active).
5. Tip Jar
If Spam Karma saved your life/relationship/cat/mailbox and you feel overly generous, please feel free to make a donation.
If you don’t have cash, but plenty of time to spare, consider helping out with some WP community-related projects.
6. Other Languages
Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous français? 日本語喋れる？¿Hablas Español? Parla Italiano? etc.
SK2 can probably speak your language !
Go here to find instructions on how to switch SK2 to a language other than English.
If your language is not in this list already (or even if it is, but you feel the translations can be improved), learn how you can contribute here.
7. Documentation and Extra Stuff
For more info about how SK2 works, what it does, how you can improve it etc, check SK2′s Documentation Blog on wp-plugins.net. Please feel free to contribute.
There are additional third-party plugins available to extend SK2′s functionalities. Check out the full list here.
SK2 will automatically inserts an “X spams eaten” message in your footer (you can disable or customize it in the admin options).
Using SK2? Eager to tell the world about it? Like having 300 little acronym buttons on the side of your page?
Say no more, we have what you need:
Feel free to download and do whatever you want with this kick-ass button, including using it on your own page, possibly with a link to this very page. However: hotlink it directly from this page, and I will unleash my legions of killer ferrets on you and your descendance, at the click of a mouse.
If you are a developer and would like to learn how you can very easily use SK2 as a support for your own anti-spam development effort, check out the SK2 API page.
If you have an idea on how to improve SK2 (and see no mention of it in the existing docs) feel free to contact me about it, but keep in mind that nearly any addition to SK2 can be done outside of the core, through an SK2 module. Feel free to contact me if you want to take on such a task and need a bit of help getting started.
Normally, SK2 should automatically check for updates on a reasonably regular basis, but consider checking that page back in a few weeks if you do not see any update.
8. What about Karma?
You mean, the sanskrit word that defines a concept in eastern religions?
I wrote an entry about it here.
9. Your comment was mistakenly eaten by Spam Karma?
10. Licensing and Legal Matters
Spam Karma 2 is not GPL. It is copyright and all rights reserved. However, it is absolutely free for download, use and non-commercial redistribution. Anything else is subject to prior written permission by myself. If you contact me, chances are I’ll say yes to any reasonable request.
External plugins (including those bundled with Spam Karma 2) are the property of their respective developers and, by default, subject to the same distribution rules.
What this mean in practice: Spam Karma is “free software”, in that it is absolutely free to download, free to use and even free to tinker with (although I typically would require any modifications made to it to be clearly indicated to potential users). What I do not want to see, though, is people grabbing a version of WP and SK2, packaging them together and selling them for $300 (as they could do, with GPL software). Bottom line is that I am not trying to make money with this, and I don’t see why somebody else should be able to without me having a say first.
Once again, this type of licensing doesn’t make any difference for 99% of users (it’s free for whatever you need it to do), and shouldn’t stand in the way of the remaining 1% with more specific needs. If you have doubt or questions, contact me: I am very open to any discussion or criticism regarding this format of licensing.
I am also very open to porting SK2 over to other platforms. Its architecture makes it extremely portable (for a WP plugin). Contact me if you think you may be interested in adapting it for another platform.
It goes without saying that this software is provided “as is”, without any guarantee of warranty of any kind, nor could I ever be held liable for any damages it could do to your system (see header of source code for details): if SK2 was to go berserk, screw up your database, delete your entire blog, kill your cat and rape your hamster (or the other way round), you’re pretty much on your own legally. It shouldn’t though.
11. Changelog
New in 2.3:
- Miscellaneous bug-fixes (UI, WP21 compatibility, compatibility with other plugins etc.)
- A few small changes in the modules (improving blacklisting module, disabling RBL for now).
- Important updates to WordPress DB schema in order to try and improve its sluggish loading time (not directly an SK2 problem per se, but had to be done for SK2 to run fine).
2.2:
- Miscellaneous bug-fixes (UI, WP2 compatibility etc.)
- Fine-tuning of older modules to accomodate new spambot breed.
- Minor additions to SK2′s filtering modules to raise SK2 protections.
2.1:
- Full multilingual support (see available languages).
- WP 2.0 and SQL 5.0 compatibility
- Improved email integration (can flag/unflag spam directly from notification emails).
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
[...] También se invalida el tag <img>, que no me preocupa tanto, ya que aunque parezca un poco restrictivo, veo bien caparlo ya que en caso contrario se se deja libertad a cualquiera -que pase el spam-karma- de pastear una imagen, pues puede incluir la url que quiera, con un peso desmesurado que dificulte la lectura, y con unas dimensiones -eso si las pone- no coherentes (os imaginais unos atributos del tipo width=”4000″ height=”4000″?). [...]
[...] That’s when I came across Spam Karma 2. From it’s website: [...]
[...] Hab mir mal das WordPress Buch von Bomots besorgt. Fazit: Nett für den Anfänger, für denjenigen der das Ding von alleine zum laufen bringt und ein wenig Foren lesen kann praktisch nutzlos. Es ist zwar verständlich geschrieben und gut gegliedert, aber da wo es interessant wird (bei den PlugIns nämlich) ist eigentlich jeder Link schon veraltet. Aber ich unterstütze den Bomots Verlag trotzdem gerne, von daher bereue ich den Kauf nicht. Und als kleine Anregung hab ich hier vorhin SpamKarma installiert. Jetzt brauch ich nur noch Spam permalink | trackback uri | [...]
[...] Spam Karma – spam blocker [...]
[...] I’ve just installed the SpamKarma plugin for WordPress in an attempt to fend off the wave of comment and trackback spam that’s been hitting this blog lately. I’m not sure what a ‘Beyoncé Ass Wedgie’ might be, but I’m guessing it has nothing to do with web development. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 [...]
[...] All you spammers that have tried to clog up my in-box over the the last few days can go to hell. I was getting tired of manually disapproving comments (up to 30 a day from spammers) so I got this handy little plugin to stop your ass – it’s good shit! [...]
[...] And the comments form is now vaccinated against spam, courtesy of Spam Karma 2, with a tagline at page bottom which will count how many attempted hijackings SK2 averts. this means I can open up the commenting feature so you all don’t need to be pre-registered, or wait for me as moderator to approve your comment before it shows up on the site. Posted by Webmistress @ 11:54 pm :: Admin Comment RSS :: Trackback URI [...]
[...] Seit einem Monat hab ich keinen einzigen Spamkommentar mehr bekommen. Davor sind gerne mal 20 bis 30 pro Tag in Spam Karma h
[...] Dr Dave » Spam Karma 2.0 (tags: wordpress spam plugin blog tools) [...]
[...] I am trying some new tactics in the ongoing war against spam. I have switched to using Spam Karma 2.0, which has received quite a bit of acclaim for its spam-killing capabilities. If you notice any problems with comments being rejected, please let me know via e-mail and I will try and tweak it a bit more. [...]
[...] This site uses the Spam Karma anti-spam plugin to reduce the number of spam comments that appear. If you run into difficulites commenting on any posts, please e-mail the administrator so that settings can be tweaked as needed. [...]
[...] I downloaded and installed Spam Karma 2.0. The install was pretty typical. Unzip the package, and install it in your plugins folder. Then access it in the plugins screen of the WP manager. I noticed it listed all previous comments that I marked as spam, the date it occurred, and the comment. Honestly, it’s way over my head… but all Iknow is that for now, it works. [...]
[...] Enter Spam Karma 2, highly recommended by the WordPress Support Forums. [...]
[...] I’ve been running Spam Karma 2 (SK2) beta for a while and it was working OK, but there were a bunch of things that didn’t quite work on my server (in all fairness that probably had more to do with an outdated/feature poor version of PHP than with SK). [...]
[...] Blog spammers are attacking blogs with their typical messages, but they have a new, ingenious, and potentially catastrophic trick. They’re incorporating links to legitimate, respectable domains into those attacks. The net result is that automated spam filters, even so-called “smart filters” like Dr. Dave’s Spam Karma plug-in system for WordPress-based blogs, are Blacklisting domains like CNN.com, IMDB.com, MacCentral.com, and dozens of others. [...]
[...] If your blog is being spammed, and you want to do something about it, look no further! Spam Karma 2 is the plugin to install! I’ve had it running for some days now, and it is doing a wonderful job discriminating the good from the bad. With this plugin, it’s almost fun to get spam! =) Thanks to Peter for the tip. [...]
[...] They’re making the rounds and pounding away at the door. And I’m just taking a moment again to mention that SpamKarma 2 totall kicks their butts. If you’re using WordPress and trobuled by comment spam, I highly recommend it. The best I’ve seen anywhere. [...]
[...] Sedang mencoba-coba bermain dengan salah satu plugin wordpress yaitu SPAM KARMA. Ini gara-gara ada sepam viagra yang masuk ke comment. Untung gak sepam yang ke area posting tuh . Ehh.. ternyata pingback / trackback dari Eko-Ryo Saeba-Juniarto masuk dan dianggap sebagai sepam. Bah.. jangan-jangan lightsaber spam .. [...]
[...] You can do as I did: test Captcha! for a few days. You’ll notice that the spam is reduced, but not the texas holdem and other trackback comments. To block trackback comments you need something more powerful. try to install the Spam Karma 2 plugin (SK2). [...]
[...] There’s only one problem. Since SpamAssassin and ClamAV do such a good job of catching the phishing scams before they reach my inbox, Thunderbird has yet to catch any actual phish. But there’ve been a lot of false positives. It’s hit LiveJournal reply notices, newsletters from IEEE and Golden Key, a Spam Karma notice from my own blog, and I’ve seen it on both outbid notices and updates to saved searches from eBay. [...]
Spam Karma 2 plugin
Look at this blog’s posts, both old and new. Even the most successful posts. See any comment spam?
Nope, because moderation stops it. (as an aside, I consider “hi, nice blog” posts to be spam, though not of the “sleazy” …
[...] Spam Karma 2 – Reloaded：防止spam的插件，很好用。 [...]
[...] I grabbed the netinst version of debian testing, and followed the instructions in the article to get a base system configured. The, I used apt to get a working LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) installation. I’ve started to favor php over perl, and since all of my e-mail has moved to gmail, it was nice not having to work with mod_perl or mod_ssl. I added SSH to the virtual machine, and since all of my pictures for the website are on flickr, I was able to leave off the gallery installation, which left me with wordpress as the only piece of software that I actually had to install. However, before I jumped into that ball of joy, I had to configure exim4 to send external mail through my ISP as a smarthost, because I get my Spam Karma 2 digests and website backups delivered via e-mail. I won’t get into it, but it was my first time with exim, and I’d have to say that I like sendmail a ton better. [...]
[...] Comment spam is a nasty thing. I originally used a captcha based spam blocker (where you have to type in the text from a funny looking image), but have since changed to something more discrete: Spam Karma 2.0. The goal of SK2 is to “stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.” [...]
[...] [UPDATE] Habe nach kurzer Recherche das (hoffentlich) ultimative Anti-Spam-Tool für WordPress installiert.
Es heißt Spam Karma und bietet eigentlich alle Filter die es so gibt. U.a. einen Linkcounter, Blacklisten, JavaScript checks, Captcha check, usw. Zudem kann man alle Filter individuell konfigurieren bzw. ganz abschalten. [...]
[...] Spam Karma – Filtro de los comentarios para evitar el spam. [...]
[...] Comment spam is a nasty thing. I originally used a captcha based spam blocker (where you have to type in the text from a funny looking image), but have since changed to something more discrete: Spam Karma 2.0. The goal of SK2 is to “stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.” [...]
[...] Já estava até esquecendo dos spams no blog quando meu celular começou a apitar sem parar, de verdade! Começou hoje uma chuva de spam maldito no meu blog. Me lembrei que o Carlos Aquino, aqui no(hehehe, sacou a piadinha?) meu blog me sugeriu o Spam Karma para o WordPress. Como todos plugins para WordPress a instalação é muito simples, só jogar no servidor, habilitar o plugin no WordPress com um clique e se precisar configurar. Joguei ele no modo “meio bravo” e como um passe de mágica o meu celular parou de apitar. Os spams foram bloqueados! Agora é só manter o plugin atualizado. Obrigadão Carlos! [...]
Spam Karma 2.0
Da ich in letzter Zeit immer wieder mal mit Blogspam zu kämpfen hatte, habe ich das WP-Plugin Spam Karma 2.0 installiert.
SK2 verwendet ein komplexes Filtersystem und überprüft jeden Kommentar, Trackback oder Pingback.
Download und Installation…
[...] But In the meantime I have noticed that this blog is starting to get spammed, so I have installed the Spam Karma plugin to deal with it. Now, it works on a Bayesian type filter system, which is prone to block some false postives. So if your comment doesn’t get through, drop me an email and I will make sure I approve it right away, or add you to the whitelist, or tell you to get lost. [...]
[...] An dieser Stelle m
[...] So, ich hab grad erfolgreich mein erstes Plugin für WordPress installiert. War echt easy. Wenn es jetzt noch brav den Spam abhält bin ich zufrieden mit Spam Karma 2.0. [...]
[...] 两三天前无意中看到Spam Karma 2出了2.1Beta，并且其中一个比较大的亮点就是本地化，所以在第一时间进行了下载及更新。很可惜的是，它所提供的zh_CN.mo还是0%的进度。所以，在这接下来的6个小时里我不吃不喝，把它基本翻译了一下（大部分时间是在上班的时候完成的 ）。 [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 – Reloaded [...]
[...] Anti-Comment-Spam: Before upgrading to WP 2.0, I was using Spam Karma 2 – Reloaded to handle comment spam. WP 2.0 includes Akismet, which is a nice little plugin that takes care of catching comment spam. After upgrading, it was refreshing to see that it detected all the comment spam that was already in my database, that SK2 previously detected. [...]
[...] 醒來之後就聽到 jnlin 說 「wp-2.0 release 了」，就順手升級了一下，幾個常用的 plugin 也先拿掉了，像是 AuthImage，Spam Karma 2 – Reloaded，結果太華麗了，我反而不太會用 XD [...]
[...] I’ve had a bit of spam here lately, nothing much really, since spam karma has caught all of it with one measly exception. For some reason though, I’ve decided to see if I can be a bit more proactive in stopping this mess so I’ve re-activated Bad Behavior. So at the risk of saying something stupid (since if somehow you are now blocked from the site, you aren’t very likely going to be reading this either), let me know. And of course I’ll let you know what I think of Bad Behavior as well. [...]
[...] 27.12.2005 – Update: Mit dem Plugin »Spam Karma 2« gibt es ein kleines Problem: Freigegebene Kommentare erscheinen zwar unter dem Artikel, werden aber nicht ins comment_count-Feld gespeichert. Die Funktion comments_number liefert somit einen falschen Wert zurück. Lösung: Auf neue Version warten oder auf »Akismet« umsteigen (ist bei WP 2.0 bereits als Plugin dabei). [...]
[...] a couple of days ago i upgraded my wordpress 1.5.2 installation to 2.0. everything seems fine, until i noticed that some of my entries reported wrong number of comments. idban pointed out that there is a similar bug report at wordpress forum, and the culprit was spam karma 2, which i have installed to fend off comments anda trackbacks spam. fortunately there is a spam karma compatibility plugin to fix this bug. [...]
[...] Spam is really bothering me, my blog and my mail box too. Time for some firewall. May be the spam karma? Lets see spam karma counting. Search Keywords: spam, spamming, spam karma, blog comments, spam comments, comments, blocking spam [...]
[...] I’m giving Akismet, the default spam plugin which ships with WordPress 2.0 a go and hope I’ll find it as useful as Spam Karma is on my WordPress 1.5.x blogs. It’s a little frustrating to set up however, as you have to create an account on WordPress.com with a dummy blog just to get your API key. I’ll let you know how I get on with it. [...]
[...] Update: The first day was amusing. Now it’s really becoming annoying. The spam is coming in bunches and filling my inbox with Comment Moderation requests. Geez. So now I’m trying this WordPress plugin called Spam Karma 2. Hopefully it works. [...]
[...] 刚刚装了Spam Karma 2，因为我发现有多了几条垃圾留言，不敢不慎重对待了。 [...]
[...] Ich hab’s jetzt Minu nachgemacht und setzte seit neustem Spam Karma ein. Ich hab damit bisher keine Erfahrung, hoffe aber, dass keiner, der einen normalen Kommentar verfassen will, Probleme damit kriegt. Ansonsten, duerft ihr euch gerne mit einer kurzen Nachricht melden. [...]
[...] SpamKarma WeatherIcon Countdown LazyGallery o42 Clean Umlauts Page Links To Page Comments PXS Mail Form Run PHP DoFollow SH-Autolink SRG Clean Archives Subscribe to comments Themes Switcher WP-Grins Zap_ImgPop Zap_NewWindow [...]
[...] I was using Spam Karma 2 Reloaded before but am trying out the Akismet spam service. This requires a wordpress.com API key. The key comes with a account but I wish I could have gotten one without signing up for an account I will never use. O well. [...]
Spam Karma 2 在 WordPress 2.0 的修正
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[...] I had them moderated because I was getting absolutely BLASTED with spam. Like more than 70 spam comments A DAY. A big warm gooey THANK YOU to Scott-O-Rama for helping me out and installing a great plugin to help combat this nasty monster. (The plugin, should you be interested, is called Spam Karma and is available by clicking on the words Spam Karma as they appear in this sentence.) [...]