Sock’Em SPAMbots

Sock'Em SPAMbots

CAPTCHA fields inhibit both human and robot participation in important kitty-related discussions. Sock’Em SPAMbots exists to take a more seamless approach to SPAM blocking, placing the burden on the robots, not the humans. Any combination of the following can be enabled:

  • Javascript: require basic Javascript support, and in the process prove the user visited the actual comment form (instead of just submitting straight to WP).
  • Cookies: require basic cookie support, and again, prove the user visited the site before submitting a comment.
  • Honeypot: generic formbots will often populate all form fields with gibberish, so we can assume that if text is added to an invisible field, something robotic is happening!
  • Speed: automated scripts complete comment forms with inhuman speed, thus if submissions happen really quickly, we can assume it is a robot doing the submitting!
  • Links: reject comments with excessive number of links.
  • Disable trackbacks or pingbacks independently of one another.

Screenshots

Changelog

1.0.0
new Add privacy policy hook for GDPR compliance.
new Added translation support.
new Debug log is now in JSON format.
new A warning is now displayed on the Sock’Em SPAMbots page when debug mode is enabled.
misc Code cleanup.
misc The plugin has been relicensed under WTFPL; go wild!
0.9.0
new Form expiration test.
new max comment length.
new Ability to disable comment author links.
0.8.1
fix Enahnced link counting to include [url] tags and plaintext URLs.
0.8.0
new Ability to reject comments with excessive number of links.
0.7.0
new Ability to exempt authenticated users from tests.
new Update per-post comment and ping statuses en masse.
new Warn administrators if bbPress or BuddyPress are installed.