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For bug-reports exclusively, you can contact me using this online form (do not use the old support email account: it is no longer active).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
[...] Dr. Dave’s Spam Karma 2 — before Akismet, this plugin is one of the best out there and probably still one of the toughest anti-spam contenders. [...]
[...] Install Spam Karma or some other quality spam protection. You shouldn’t have to fight with that junk. [...]
[...] Wow. While I was on vacation, Spam Karma kind of freaked out in some way and was no longer functioning. As a result, I was left with the default WordPress comment moderation facilities. [...]
[...] Over the last couple of weeks one of my servers became sluggish and the web server became completely unresponsive. Initially I saw the Spam Assassin process was chewing up the processor. Today I saw that a distributed attack was hitting my WordPress installation as spam comments were immediately deleted by Spam Karma. The server status was showing various IP addresses hitting the comments post page which would max out the number connections I allow for the web server. To overcome these attacks I am trying out the Apache DoS Evasive Maneuvers Module which manages an automatic blacklist which will stop these frequent hits from these remote servers. I have also limited the Spam Assassin service which should make it much less likely to allow it to be the resource hog it has been lately. [...]
[...] Miraz introduced me to the Bad Behavior WordPress plugin some time ago, and after ascertaining that it did indeed work with a GoDaddy.com hosting account (my hosting ISP), I installed it on all of my WordPress-based sites. What I saw was an immediate reduction in the amount of spam that Spam Karma was catching. That wasn’t because it made Spam Karma less effective; it was because less spam was actually accepted by WordPress for moderation. I can verify this by checking the Bad Behavior stats — it catches roughly 7,000 potential spam hits a week on just one of my sites. That means my server doesn’t have to work so hard and, as a result, it can be more responsive to visitors. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 – written by dr. Dave. Geof Morris recommended this to me a while back, it does a pretty good job. [...]
[...] Oggi pero’ ho voluto provare a sostituire Askimet con Spam Karma come filtro antispam per i commenti del blog; il tutto dopo che nelle ultime due settimane sono passato da circa un centinaio di spam bloccato da Askimet, ad oltre 1200 commenti spazzatura… ovviamente non ho ancora guardato bene tutte le funzioni di Spam Karma, ma mi sembra un po’ piu’ comodo cancellare al volo tutto lo spam o farlo fare al plugin… inon sapendo pero’ se nell’usarli insieme tutti e due avrei potuto avere qualche problema, ho disattivato Askimet per sicurezza. [...]
[...] UPDATE: Just installed Spam Karma 2.2. Hopefully, this will help me and my spam blasting efforts. YAY. [...]
[...] Over the last 3 days my website has been hammered by spam bots. To date, one of my spam plugins has stopped >6000 spam comments from being posted. To aid in the fight against spammers, I’ve added a couple new spam fighting plugins to my arsenal. The arsenal currently contains: 1.) Akismet 2.) Bad Behavior 3.) Spam Karma 2 [...]
[...] Dr Dave: Along with people, you get spam. Lots of spam. And I have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to the Ultimate Spam Killer. Created by Dr Dave and a whole lot of other people, SK2 works in the background to make spam a rare occurrence on DWB. [...]
[...] A couple other effective blog tools I’ve seen highly recommended to help combat spam are Bad Behavior and Spam Karma 2. I’ve not used either one, so if you have some experience with those (or any other solutions) let us know about it. [...]
[...] I consulted with some friends who have used WordPress about how they handled spam. Bob Martin of the famed Mindanao Blog told me about Spam Karma. I found out it was really cool. And yes, the spams are gone. [...]
[...] Then I found out that there’s too many Trackback spam on my site. Although Spam Karma and Akismet successfully block and put them into spam list, but deleting a thousands of them a day is such a tired work. I can leave them alone, but as it accumulate day by day, it clogs up my database. So, I decided to try this solution. It works by blocking all trackback queries send to wp-trackback.php instead of the usual pretty permalink. I haven’t test whether this plugin will block legitimate trackback, but to see trackback to my site is rare. Well, I will test when I setup a sandbox. So far I don’t see any Trackback spam caught by Spam Karma, I guess it works. [...]
[...] UPDATE: Parece que el problema es que no se valida la API IDE de wordpress desde Akismet. Seguramente por los problemas de dns y derivados
He solucionado la papeleta metiendo el Spam Karma 2 (que me ha sorprendido bastante) con un plugin que hace que use como filtro añadido Akismet 
Por lo visto no he sido el único caso. [...]
[...] Я сейчас поставил антиспам-систему Spam Karma 2 (что, впрочем, ты и можешь увидеть внизу страницы) – по сравнению с Akismet’ом она немного более наворочена, но всё же кое в чём уступает последнему (например, не может без лишнего гемора удалить сразу все спам-комменты). Впрочем, с ней блог стал работать ощутимо быстрее – она без особого указания не лезет на сервера спам-идентификации, а старается обходиться штатными средствами. В общем, скрепя сердце, – рекомендую. (Почему “скрепя сердце”? Потому что там столько настроек, что придётся полчаса-час провозиться с ними, настраивая систему под себя; да и юзабилити, честно говоря, у него так себе…) a img.vc_icon, a:hover img.vc_icon{ text-decoration:none; border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; position:relative; top:-2px;} Просмотрено 1 раз 1 посетителем [...]
[...] >> Spam Karma - Instalación automática, solo con activar el plugin. - Para el solito un 95% de basura - Super configurable, por ip, dominio, etc - ofrece todo tipo de información acerca de su actividad. [...]
[...] I just installed Spam Karma 2. Let’s see how well it works. [...]
[...] 1. Spam Karma 2: A new addition to the site (added on Nov 13, 2006), that I installed mostly out of sheer curiousity. [...]
[...] Последние несколько дней я не обращал внимание на работу спам-фильтра Akismet. Сегодня заметил волшебную надпись «Akismet has protected your site from 1,246 spam comments», хотя еще неделю назад число комментов, которые плагин определил как спам было не больше 300. Причем проверить правильность определения не представляется возможноым, так как Akismet отображает почему-то не все выявленные сообщения рекламного характера. По наводке с Gluek’s blog буду пробовать Spam Karma. [...]
[...] Onte Pedro Silva anunciou a dispoñibilidade de tres novos engadidos para os blogues de blogaliza, entre eles Spam Karma 2. Spam Karma 2 pretende evita-lo spam tanto en comentarios como en trackbacks. Xa había outro engadido para evita-lo spam nos comentarios, a imaxe antispam nos comentarios, que desactivei. [...]
[...] If you take a look at the bottom of the page you will see This blog is protected by Spam Karma 2: 3844 Spams eaten and counting… now that is the total so far and i have a strange feeling that it will hit way over 4500 but the weeks end or in the next few days 3 may at best. [...]
[...] I’m testing Dr. Dave’s Spam Karma and within 5 minutes, I caught a spammer. The “making people register” idea didn’t work for real people and didn’t even stop the bots completely. So, let’s give this a try. [...]
[...] Menarik. Dan berbahagialah Anda dengan spam yang masuk, karena itu berarti pakde gugel memperhatikan Anda. Tetap berteman dengan akismet atau SpamKarma. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 was the very first anti-spam plugin I used asides from Akismet, which many bloggers would consider as an in-house anti-spam measure since it’s included in every version of WordPress. I thought SK2-Akismet tandem was the ultimate spam killing system that would protect my blog. [...]
[...] First things first: spam. No, not spiced ham but the scum of communication media. This site is currently the target of a surprisingly large number of spam comments per day but something called Spam Karma 2 keeps them from annoying you and I (well, they still annoy me, but less so than they would otherwise). Spam Karma does a wonderful job of picking out the bad stuff while letting all you lovely people post your thoughts as normal and I would recommend it to anyone using WordPress, but there are some things you can do to help it on its way. If you should choose to comment you could, for example, always enter the same email address or website to let my blog know who you are. Thank you . [...]
[...] No obstante, poco a poco veo que los robot de spam se vuelven cada vez más listos. Cuando estuve meses sin escribir, como no había movimiento, pues ni un solo post de esos malditos de casinos online… …empece a escribir y volvieron. El spamkarma tiraba bien, y los reconocía bien y los eliminaba sin mas. [...]
[...] Perisian Spam Karma 2 telah dipasangkan ke dalam semua blog. [...]
Spam Karma 2
Ein sehr beliebtes PlugIn für die Handhabung von Spam im eigenem Blog. Überwacht WordPress auf Spam mit globalen und lokalen Black- bzw. Whitelisten.
- konfigurierbar
PlugIn-Seite: unknowngenius.com
…
[...] Spam Karma 2 (2.2 r3) Kapitalna wtyczka – szczelna obrona przed spamerskimi komentarzami. Działa wyśmienicie! [...]
[...] Now at the simplest level these attempts are easy to block by ensuring that logs are not published and all comments must be approved before publication. But comment moderation can become a chore if you’re trying to sort one genuine message from among hundreds of fake ones, so there are some nice WordPress plugins available to help – notably Akismet, Spam Karma 2 and Bad Behavior. These three plugins each take a different approach to dealing with the problem, and they all seem to be effective. I’ve only tested Akismet and SK2 so far – both work well. [...]
[...] My blog seems to be under a heavy comment SPAM attack clocking up lots of CPU, and I suspect as a result 1and1 has decided to periodically serve an alternative page containing the single line CGI-limits reached, please try again later! and a 200 OK HTTP response. Yes, they think that’s ‘OK’! As a result Google’s cache no longer has my real content, and I’m looking for an alternative host. Update: Yesterday this blog received over 3000 comment SPAMs, all trapped by SPAM Karma2, however 1and1 still continue to periodically inject the 200 OK error messages and don’t see the code as an issue. I’m hoping that moving to a more savvy hosting company will give me more options. See you on the otherside!. [...]
[...] It is an unfortunate fact that for every good thing on the internet, there’s a hundred people trying to cover it in spam. Your blog is one of the good things, and no matter how small, someone’s trying to spam it.As most of the spamming is being done by automated programs (bots) these days, it’s not personal & it doesn’t matter in the slightest what your blog is about; if the bots find a way to post comments, they will absolutely batter you with them, posting hundreds a day. I saw this with a simple PHP based guestbook I used on another site: first it was one comment a day, then a couple, then a dozen, and within 14 days a couple of hundred comments were going on, and I had to delete it. There are a variety of ways you can prevent Comment Spam: Switch off comments: The most drastic, but certainly the most effective. Do you really want comments on your blog posts? If not, switch them off. Speaking for myself though, I find it one of the best things about blogging, being able to interact with my readers, so I need something else. It is worth considering switching off comments, if you’re going to leave your blog for any great length of time though. Moderation: Easily the best option, in conjunction with a plug-in, and until you reach the stage of 100 comments a day, it needn’t take very long. On my blogs, moderation is enabled on first time posters. Once I’ve approved the initial post, their details are saved, and all future comments go straight onto the blog. This method has worked well and the only comment spam I have seen (the rest was stopped by Bad Behavior before I saw it) I could mark as spam, and block the commenter from making any more comments. You could alternatively require ALL comments to be moderated, but if you build up a regular group of visitors, you will soon be drowning in comments to moderate. CAPTCHA – (Word Verification) A letter or number entry of a sequence which has been obscured. Everyone is familiar with these simple tests, where you are required to type in a group of twisted, obscured characters, prior to entering a comment. Loathed by every comment leaver who uses them, I would be wary about placing them on my blog. Some sets are relatively easy to interpret, but others are so vague, it can take 3 or 4 attempts to get them right. Most blog readers won’t go much past the second attempt, and some have stated they won’t comment at all. As far as I am aware, this is the only standard spam protection available to Blogger users – I would suggest using only if comment spam has reached an unbearable level, and turning off again as soon as you are able. CAPTCHA apparently stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Math CAPTCHA – This is appearing on more blogs, and I think is more preferable to the standard CAPTCHA. It asks reader to enter the result of a simple math question e.g. ’sum of 2+4′. Use, according to the intelligence of your readers…. PlugIns: WordPress users can benefit from the following plugins – they are all designed to stop comment spam before you see it: they have a risk of banning legitimate users, but used in conjunction with a good moderation policy, they can reduce spam comments to 0. Bad Behavior – The plugin used on my blogs. Detects spambots by the way in which they make HTTP requests i.e. it identifies automated commenters & blocks them with a short error message. On my 2 blogs, Bad Behavior is stopping some 500 comments every 7 days, and no-one has yet mailed me to say that they were wrongly blocked. Of course, human spammers may enter comments, but: a.They can only do so many at once, and b.I catch them by moderating first time comments. To date, I have only had 2 of these comments, easily deleted. Akismet – Now installed as standard with WordPress, Akismet works by referring all comments back to the Akismet server to be checked against a blacklist & other tests. If identified as spam, it is moved to a holding folder for moderation by yourself. If you use a free, or other host which blocks outgoing traffic from your webspace (Awardspace for one) you will not be able to use Akismet. Spam Karma 2 – Another plugin with a good reputation, SK2 runs all comments against an updated blacklist and moves suspect comments into a holding area for your moderation. [...]
[...] updated: 22 Desember 2006, 19:29 Saya udah cobain untuk kirim email kebeberapa blogger yang saya anggap mungkin lebih tau tentang masalah ini (engga usah saya sebutin deh namanya) tapi mereka engga (mungkin belum) memberikan jawannya mungkin mereka terlalu sibuk untuk menjawab pertanyaan gw yang terlalu sepele untuk ditanyakan kepada mereka, akhirnya saya pake spam karma 2 dan menonaktifkan Akismetnya. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] Have you ever heard of this before? Well, that’s just my way of calling blogs that without the option to leave any comment. Well, why do I call it web 1.0 blog? Web 2.0 is actually a platform for people to have conversation with other online users.If you turn off the ability to leave comments on your blog, it’s no different than any personal sites that we used to have ages ago. Well, that sucks!Some people gave excuses that they did it because they just tired of getting so many spam comments coming to their blog. But I don’t think that is a valid reason, because there’s so many anti-spam tool created for blog. As for me, since I use wordpress to publish my blog entries, I use Spam-Karma 2, and it’s powerful enough for me to stop all the evil spams from getting through the spam filter. So cool, isn’t it?And if you use blogger from Google, it’s even better. You can just use the word verification anti-spam tool that come together as a standard feature for all blogs hosted in blogspot.For me, bloggers who doesn’t want people to publish comments on their blog are just plain selfish. And it’s so not web 2.0. [...]
[...] Math Comment Spam Protection Plugin 這應該是 loading 最輕的阻擋垃圾留言（comment spam）的外掛了吧，不過也僅只能阻擋垃圾留言，無法擋掉引用留言（trackback spam），所以 akismet 或 Spam Karma 還是有必要存在呀。 [...]
[...] Having taken a quick look at the Jokosher project last night, I remembered that the project have made use of an anti-spam plugin for WordPress, Spam Karma 2. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 Nachdem alle Versuche gescheitert waren, Trackback-Spam zu unterbinden hier, kam Spam Karma 2 ins Haus. Macht was es soll, bisher ist kein Trackbackspam durchgekommen. [...]
[...] Due to the implementation of SPAM Karma 2 and Akismet, none of the comment spam actually made it to the blog. I was pretty amazed at how thoroughly these two pieces of software have filtered the incoming comments. [...]
[...] Today I’ve installed Spam Karma 2 plugin for WordPress and re-enabled comments and pingbacks blog-wide. Let’s wait and see what the outcome of this plugin will be. At the footer of the blog this plugin will give some statistics about how many spam comments it has thwarted. [...]
[...] Salah satu konsekuensi mempunyai situs sendiri adalah kita harus melakukan segala sesuatunya sendiri, terhadap sistemnya dan terhadap kontennya juga. Beberapa waktu yang lalu, entah kenapa aku tiba-tiba niat untuk bersih2 instalasi WordPress-ku. Karena sejak pertama kali install lebih dari setahun yang lalu, hampir tak pernah aku tengok lagi dalemannya (hah? nengok daleman? ) Dan benar saja, isinya sudah sedemikian amburadul. Susunan file-nya sudah mayan kacau, apalagi databasenya, sampai 8MB! Walah.. ternyata isinya cuma hasil filter plugin Spam Karma yang belum dihapus. Selain itu banyak table dan field tambahan yang aku sendiri juga sudah lupa, ini tuh dulu milik plugin yang mana. hehehe… Salah satu penyumbang kerumitan ini adalah Kiwi, sebuah hybrid plugin/themes yang dulu pernah aku pakai di WordPressku. [...]
[...] Ojeando por Internet he visto recomendado el Spam Karma 2, ya lo he instalado y todavía no lo he configurado, a ver cómo va, y si no cambiaré. Así que dejo el post sobre la Navidad, dulce Navidad para otro día. [...]
[...] For WordPress users I highly recommend the free plug-in Spam Karma 2 which managed to stop every single one of them automatically. Permalink [...]
[...] De afgelopen dagen is het met het aantal SPAM reacties op mijn weblog echt extreem geweest. Gelukkig zijn Akismet en Spam Karma geinstalleerd en geactiveerd. Spam Karma (SK) zit standaard in WordPress 2.0+. Er is hierdoor geen SPAM doorgekomen op het weblog zelf. Maar het ging echt om een kleine 1000 SPAM reacties in ruim 2 dagen. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 Ultimate Spam Killer; please bow reverently toward Dr Dave. I would not blog without this protection. Ask my spammers. [...]
[...] Da habe ich “SpamKarma” installiert, ein Filtersystem für WordPress (das System, daß ich hier einsetze). “SpamKarma” prüft, ob Kommentare direkt auf dieser Site geschrieben wurden und diese erscheinen, ganz normal. Wenn nicht, werden die Einträge auch noch mit diversen “Blacklists” im Internet verglichen, es wird nach einschlägigen Begriffen wie “Viagra” oder “Variomatik” gesucht und direkt in den Müll gekickt. Feine Sache, das. [...]
[...] Spam Karma 2 [...]
[...] Seems like the Cog Dog and teachinghacks.com having been doing a little sharing about their WordPress plugins, which I find extremely useful -so thanks. I have been talking a bit lately about some of the plugins I have recently discovered here, here, and here -but the following list is a quick and dirty look at what’s beneath the hood of bavatuesdays: [...]
[...] 最近、妙にコメント・スパムが増えてイライラします。 一応、「SOMY SpamBlock Japanese」と「Spam Karma 2」のおかげでおもてには出てこないので見た目上は問題ないのですが、データベースの領域を無駄に食っているのが精神衛生上よろしくなく（だったら消せよといわれそうだがあえてSPAM判定された記事を残しておかないと「Spam Karma 2」の判定に影響しそう）、しかもアクセス解析プログラムの集計も不正確なものになってしまいます。 [...]
[...] [Spam Karma 2 (SK2)] – Another great plugin for fighting spam in your blogs. Read the FAQs about this plugin. [...]
[...] I’m trying to figure out how best to protect my blog from miscreants who waste bandwidth and/or bother me with worthless spammy comments. I am using Spam Karma 2 and Bad Behavior plugins for WordPress. So far I think they’re working OK. Nobody’s emailed me to say that they were wrongly blocked — yet. [...]