[stevekemp]

I run http://blogspam.net/ which does real-time spam blocking for forums/blogs/etc. On the whole you're correct, spammers go for easy targets.

But I started the project when a custom CMS of mine (more or less) started getting added to the spammer-lists. It seems like it's only a matter of time these days until people find your site and submit 10-500 comments a day. Some I can see are clearly bots, or compromised IPs, others are clearly humans (presumably paid very cheaply).

[matvoz]

Did you have auto-aprove comments? AA is a spammers heaven, and they will walk the extra mile if they find that kind of a CMS. Even if you have no-follow links. Very nice initiative for the spam-fight though. How high is your success rate? Do you use any blueprints for spun comments?

[stevekemp]

I'm not sure what you mean by "auto-approve" - There are plugins for things like wordpress which will junk comments automatically, solely on the result of the test, but others are more fine-grained. (The API does allow whitelisting/blacklisting by IP, etc.)

The success rate is pretty fluid but about 80% of comments submitted were judged to be spam today. Whether there are too many false negatives/positives is hard for me to say ..

[matvoz]

Auto-approve - comments in blog show up immediately without moderation or approval.

Good luck with fighting spam. There are never enough of you!

[CoreSet]

Interesting, thanks for responding!

Are there any other forum moderation tools you would recommend (not competitors, obviously)? I'm curious what else is available to the homebrewer.

[stevekemp]

Akismet is probably the biggest alternative.