The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

25 April 2007

They should get it back threefold

I run a couple of WordPress blogs on the side, and both of them are using the Spam Karma 2 plugin to ward off the sort of garbage that besets all of us with our own soapboxes. Each comment or ping is assigned a Karma value based upon its discernible characteristics. I pulled one spam to look at the calculation, and here's how it went:

0.5: Comment has no URL in content (but one author URL)
-7: Trackback Source Site [URL redacted]​ does not contain Blog URL domain (wendex.net).
-6: Entry posted 1 year, 7 months ago. 0 comments in the past 15 days. Current Karma: -6.

This spam was therefore valued at Karma -12.5, well below the threshold of acceptability.

It appears, though, that this is comparatively mild: this week I received a ping with the startling Karma of -1032.38. This is some seriously bad stuff, made more so by dint of sheer repetitiveness. (Apparently the SOB, or his legions of zombiebots, sent a metric crapload of these in rapid succession.) Has anyone ever gotten one worse? Surely I can't be the recordholder.

Posted at 6:55 AM to Scams and Spams


I've never had to install any spam mods, as akismet catches everything.

Do you have stuff that slips through?

Posted by: Patrick Nelson at 1:09 PM on 25 April 2007

So far, no. Akismet came with my WP install; since it presumes a WordPress ID, and I didn't have one at the time, I chose to install SK instead. It's caught everything I'd have wanted it to catch. The options, though, are at least slightly overwhelming.

Posted by: CGHill at 1:19 PM on 25 April 2007

Hey I hear ya there.

Posted by: eulalieshinn at 2:32 PM on 25 April 2007

My database is woefully painful to load, but I think I have a 1200 or two in there.

If not, I'll note my eating of some humble pie.

Posted by: Craig at 9:37 PM on 27 April 2007

Whew!

SQL statement: SELECT * FROM `wp_sk2_spams` ORDER BY karma.

First result: -50482.7. Ouch.

Posted by: Craig at 10:13 PM on 27 April 2007

Dear God. Negative karma of fifty thousand? And I thought I was losing games as a bard with -2 charisma.

Posted by: CGHill at 10:16 PM on 27 April 2007