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For bug-reports exclusively, you can contact me using this online form (do not use the old support email account: it is no longer active).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
[...] Ich empfehle dir unbedingt das Spam Karma Plugin, ich setze es auch ein, h
[...] I’m also giving Spam Karma 2 a try since the level of comment spam on my blog keeps going up. I would use Akismet but it seems like a lot of effort to block very little spam (I only get about 20-30 a day). [...]
[...] As you can see from the legend above, Spam Karma 2 is working fine, catching all the dreck that I would otherwise be cleaning out of the comments. Question, how does one remove the banner…? [...]
[...] That’s when I found Spam Karma 2. Since I installed it, I have not had one spam comment and it has caught over 200 spams already. I know Tim is in the process of moving over to Wordpress, can’t wait to see what the new blog looks like. [...]
[...] I have added plugins called Spam Karma and Bad Behavior to my blog, as reccomended by Lorrelle, a extremely helpful guy who replied to a post in my blog a few months ago. Spam Karma controls spam comments (ive been getting SHIT loads) and Bad Behaviour blocks spam bots from scanning my site. They both seem to be working great ! Thanks Lorrelle, Dr Dave and the people that make Bad Behavior! :¬) [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 [...]
[...] Plugin website: Spam Karma 2.2 [...]
[...] Sorry about the outage yesterday, comment spammers where hammering the server ThePolitic.com resides on, and evasive action had to be taken. FYI, SpamKarma is a great spam plugin, but it can’t handle a large scale comment spam attack. [...]
[...] as a matador at keeping spam out for me, your results may vary. August 15th, 2006 in Tutorials Print This Post | Save This Page | Subscribe ToPosts [...]
[...] Blog-Beitrag platzieren. Verpisst euch, ihr drei! Schreib mir einen Kommentar oder verlinke via Trackback auf deinBlog. [...]
[...] [...]
[...] ago in Microblog. Tags: Microblog, spam. Add to EdBloggerNews Print This Post Apologies if your comment doesn’t show up or if you see obscene messages on this siteover the next couple of days. I’m getting absolutely hammered by spam at the moment – at least 100 comments and around 10 trackbacks per day. As a result, until the attack subsides, I’ve disabled the trackback functionality as these show up automatically without being moderated. Spam Karma 2.2 is doing a rather wonderful job in making sure no comments have slipped through the net so far though! Bookmark:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] I installed SK2 the other day and so far, it hasn’t had any problems. [...]
[...] We have found from experience on other websites that you can’t beat a combination of akismet and Spam Karma for reducing the burden of filtering through the garbage to find genuine comments. [...]
[...] spam karma 2 – lusta voltam wordpress.com-on újra regisztrálni, nomeg Kelt annyit dicsérte.
[...]
[...] Google compliant sitemaps: Google Sitemaps Make easier to get any post and page in your blog indexed by google [...]
[...] I’ve finally installed Spam Karma to help with all the comment spam I’ve been getting. [...]
[...] Nach einer schier unendlichen und unendlich ekligen Flut an Comment-Spam habe ich heute mal Spam Karma 2 von Dr Dave installiert. Wer von Euch trotzdem noch dringend Informationen zu pr0n und v14gr4 benötigt, kann sich ja auf einschlägigen Seiten im Internet bedienen. [...]
[...] Ni devas inventi novan sistemon. Sistemo, kiu malfacile spameblas. Nun ni havas bonajn ilojn; WordPress havas ilojn kiel: Bad Behavior (malbona konduko), Spam Karma (spama karmo) k.t.p. [...]
[...] Unlike other spam killer (like Akismet plugin which behave badly with non english comments), Spam Carma 2 kills 100% of spam, and never had a problems with regular comments. [...]
[...] For my own blogs, I’ve used Akismet, AdsenseBeautifier, Custom Smileys, Gravatar and Gravatar Sign up, Simple Tags and Spam Karma 2. [...]
[...] Someone asked me a few days ago what my number one support item was here at daria.be. While the questions have covered a number of different topics, most have cenetered around either new themes or some error caused by our installation of Spam Karma 2. While I like Spam Karma 2, recommend it to folks with my hosting and over on the WPMU support forums, and think it works well, I’ve got to admit it’s been a royal pain in the butt over here at daria.be. It’s installation requires new users to actually visit the config page to get it up and running, if the blog owner didn’t run the setup script, it never gets activated and visitors couldn’t leave comments, the config was too involved for most users, the menu had too many settings with little explanation on most of them, etc. [...]
[...] Nachdem nun auch ich immer häufiger gespamt werde, habe nun auch ich Spam Karma 2 installiert. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 Web Si hay algo indispensable en cualquier instalación de WordPress, se trata de esta extensión. El antispam por excelencia. Combina varios sistemas de filtros, captcha y listas negras para detectar los molestos comentarios basura. Y lo consigue. Es cierto que en ocasiones da falsos positivos, pero con la versión 2 estos son menos frecuentes que con la anterior y, además, es mucho más sencillo recuperarlos. [...]
[...] Gelukkig is er een superhandige anti-spam plug-in voor WordPress en deze werkt perfect. Sinds de installatie heb ik (nog) geen last van spam. Klein nadeeltje is wel dat je een verificatiecode moet invoeren als je wilt reageren op een post. Maar ja,.. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 – Reloaded – prolly one of the best, if not the best, anti-spam plugin out there. [...]
[...] Je viens de finir la francisation de SK2 (version 2.2) qui attendait son tour depuis un moment dans les tréfonds de mon ordinateur… [...]
[...] I went ahead and swapped over to Spam Karma 2 and Ultimate Tag Warrior today, so pardon my dust while I go through all my posts and re-tag them. Thus far I’m quite impressed with both, though perhaps a little sad that SK2’s footer bit doesn’t seem to work. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 Web Si hay algo indispensable en cualquier instalación de WordPress, se trata de esta extensión. El antispam por excelencia. Combina varios sistemas de filtros, captcha y listas negras para detectar los molestos comentarios basura. Y lo consigue. Es cierto que en ocasiones da falsos positivos, pero con la versión 2 estos son menos frecuentes que con la anterior y, además, es mucho más sencillo recuperarlos. [...]
[...] So… I now installed bad behaviour to stop the percentage that Akismet won’t stop and on top of that I installed Spam Karma for the last remaining percentages. [...]
[...] In einer Hauruckaktion bin ich gestern vom CMS auf die Software Wordpress umgestiegen. Die Gründe kann ich vielleicht gar nicht so genau benennen. Ich wollte was neues ausprobieren, Joomla hat mich ein wenig genervt und Wordpress fand ich schon immer irgendwie interessant. Meine Blogeinträge habe ich gestern in Handarbeit rübergebracht. Die Kommentare zu den Postings haben leider gelitten und konnten nicht mit übernommen werden. Im Zuge der Umstellungs hats dann auch gleich ein neues Aussehen gegeben. Das neue ist, genau wie das alte, ein vorgefertigtes Theme, da ich nicht so der Designprofi bin, ist das für alle Beteiligten wohl die beste Lösung. Da Wordpress auch eine weitere Verbreitung als Joomla hat, habe ich das Plugin Spamkarma 2 installiert. Sollte es beim Posten also zu Problemen damit kommen, schreibt mir ne Mail. Generell steigt das Karma, wenn ihr registriert seid und einen Kommentar schreibt. [...]
[...] Heute Nacht wollten nette Spammer mein Blog mit Ihren Spam-Kommentaren etwas lebendiger gestalten – wie unschwer zu erkennen ist, war dieser Versuch nicht von Erfolg gekrönt. Der Grund dafür ist nicht etwa mein leichter Schlaf; auch nicht, dass ich wie unsere Katzen nachtaktiv bin, sonder es ist einzig und alleine Spam Karma 2 zu verdanken, dass ich nicht 380 Post manuell löschen muss. Danke, Spam Karma 2 ! [...]
[...] *For all of you who use Wordpress and have big tit alerts and enough Viagra offers to keep an army happy, I have some good news. I’ve installed the plug-in Extended Comment Options for WordPress which closes old comments so those pesky scammers don’t invade. I also have Askimet and Spam Karma. This combination has saved me many a spam headache since installing it all. Just thought you should know! [...]
[...] Many bloggers think I am the enemy levitra – they think I am turning the Internet into one Saginaw police cruiser breaks down at keno time. Well, believe you me, when it comes to long hours for little money generic viagra and zero recognition paternity tests then they should really joulzcxky kywuppo ggirktlens… [...]
[...] On my two WordPress-powered sites, the comments feature works fine. A bit too fine, in fact, as the sites quickly became victims of comment spam. Fortunately, Dr. Dave makes a great comment spam prevention plugin for WordPress called Spam Karma and that catches about 99% of the spam aimed at my two sites. I can easily catch the rest using WordPress’s built-in moderation tools. I’ll be covering all this information in detail in Chapter 4 of our book. [...]
[...] A quick look at Yuga’s list of must-have’s prompted to look into my spamming dilemna first, so i installed Spam Karma 2. Suddenly, I can moderate those nasty comments and delete them en massse. And from now on, I need not check back regularly since they won’t be showing up on my pages anymore. Wheee! Ang saya-saya! [...]
[...] So I did a little more reading and am now trying 3 plugins together, Akismet, Spam Karma 2 and Bad Behavior (I killed the image verification). From what I read, using these 3 together are very effective in blocking comment spam. So we’re going to run with this for a while and see how it goes. It probably won’t be 100% spam proof but I hopefully it will cut down the time spent moderating our comments. [...]
[...] if you find a plugin useful, remember that the author probably welcomes a donation. With spammers battering at my blogs this week Dr Dave’s Spam Karma and Michael Hampton’s Bad Behavior are invaluable for me, as you can see from these recent Spam Karma reports for TiKouka: [...]
[...] Early in August I installed a Wordpress plugin on all of my blogs called Spam Karma 2. I had been getting an increasing amount of comment spam. My blogs were all set to semi-moderation — the first comment you make to the blog would be moderated but, once approved, you could comment freely. Going through each individual spam comment on three blogs was getting tedious and time-consuming. When I inadvertently deleted some legitimate comments from one post, I decided I needed to start investigating plugins. [...]
[...] 另外則是安裝了 Spam Karma 2.2 這個 plugin，因為最近自己的 Blog 實在是被 Comment Spam 攻擊的蠻嚴重的。 [...]
[...] Yeah, I’m on the ball. Finally upgraded to Wordpress 2.0 from 1.5. We’ll see how it works. I installed Bad Behavior and Spam Karma 2 also. I also made a new sig image for forums. [...]
[...] Lo que mas me asombra es que en los ultimos 4 dias he recibido 300 mensajes de spam (ademas spam aburrido y sin sentido) por lo que me he visto obligado a tomar algunas medidas, como la instalacion del plugin Spam Karma Reloader que a sido mano de santo, los ha identificado todos impidiendo su publicacion ( y eso que no lo he configurado, esta con las opciones por defecto). [...]
WordPress Plugin List
Often, I come across other blogs/websites built using WordPress. On a few occasions, I’ve seen a really cool or unique feature on their site which I want to have on mine. More often than not, the plugin is something freely and publicly available…
[...] My Pingback doesn’t seem to be working. I know of at least two blogs that link to my post about Requirements To Be A Dot Com Mogul, yet their blog posts doesn’t show up the comments. Anyone have any ideas why this is happening and how to fix it? Could the Spam Karma 2 software I use to kill comment spam be preventing Pingbacks? [...]
[...] This site, and a bunch of others I run, are hosted on my own little Mac OS X 10.4 server. Mac OS X Server comes with PHP built in. But it’s PHP 4 — an older release. The problem with this version is that it didn’t support the captcha module of my comment spam prevention program, Spam Karma 2. [...]
Fighting comment spam
I get a fair amount of spam on this site. Nearly all of it is automated.
I enabled a simple math anti-spam plugin a while back. This cut out most of the spam posts I received, but apparently some spam bots can do math.
Rampant captchas annoy me, so…
[...] Dank Dr. Dave’s “Spam Karma” geht jetzt aber nur mehr Zeit drauf, die vielen handgeschriebenen aber genauso wertlosen Kommentare wie “Diese Seite ist super!” oder “Cooler Post!” zu l
[...] Do u believe tht i got 58 spam comments in this blog in the last 30 mins which is actually almost 80% equal to the total number of comments of this blog so far. From my experience, when compared to blogger, wordpress blogs are much more open to the spammers and this may becaz of the SEO friendly nature of WP. Luckily there are some good anti-spam plugin available for the wordpress and one good plugin to mention is Spam-Karma. I used Spam-Karma for my tamil blog and it saves lots of my time by protecting my blog from spammers. Unfortunately it overrides the comment moderation option and it publishes all the non spam comments without waiting for the administrators approval. This may some times provide the way for the personal attacks which is a very common behavior in the blogging world now-a-days. There is a definite space for the much more intelligent anti spamming mechanism and a intelligent comment tracking mechanism. At the same time some people are already raised their voice for a no comment option in the blog and instead allow the user to email the author with his views/feedbacks. But this would defintely affect the interesting discussion part, which is one of the significant aspects of the blogging. There are some cases where the comments are much more informative than the actual post itself. [...]
[...] statistical analysis of the message contents – this picks up the common Bayesian analysis techniques, keywords, existence of multiple links, etc. I think SpamKarma is a good example (though I think it uses other methods too). [...]
[...] So today I instituted a comment-based Q & A support system. In the support pages for each of my books, there’s a Q & A link. Following that link takes the visitor to a page that provides introductory information and a list of the questions and answers submitted so far. At the end of the questions and answers is a form they can use to ask a new question. The form utilizes the site’s comment feature, so all entries are filtered by Spam Karma, the excellent spam protection software by dr Dave. Very little spam should get through, and, if it does, getting rid of it is as easy as clicking a link. Registration is not required — although an e-mail address is — and visitors can elect to “subscribe” to comments so they get their answer, as well as related questions and answers, delivered right to their e-mail box. E-mail addresses do not appear online and I don’t use the ones I get for anything. In fact, I don’t even know how to retrieve them from the bowels of WordPress. So you don’t have to worry about spam coming from me. [...]