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For bug-reports exclusively, you can contact me using this online form (do not use the old support email account: it is no longer active).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
Hi. I had to deactivate Spam Karma 2 becuase is crashed the MMCACHE module of my server’s PHP (see error below).
I am using WordPress 1.5.2 and using Spam Karma Final r2.
Note: When installing the plugin, I had to move all of the sk_2*.php files from the SK2 folder to the root of the plugins folder (got the tip from codex.wordpress.com). The SK2_Plugins folder was also moved to the root of the plugins folder.
Any thoughts?
[21867] MMCACHE: PHP crashed on opline 25 of load_plugin_files() at /home/leo/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/sk2_core_class.php:65
Richard: Indeed it can’t. At least not out of the box. I’m quite a firm believer of software that does one thing only and does it well. SK2 is a spam-filter, not a moderation tool (although it would be extremely easy to customize it to do so). I believe Westi’s plugin will help you solve your issue, and if not, there will eventually be other modules made, I’m sure. Unfortunately, I’m a tad busy to do anything SK2-related at the moment.
Leo:
Yes: SK2 is not compatible with MMCACHE. Or more exactly: MMCACHE is not compatible with SK2, as what seems to bother MMCACHE is slightly elaborated, yet perfectly valid, PHP code. The plugin loading system SK2 uses would indeed easily bother a less-than-perfect caching system: unfortunately, there is little I can do about it, short of recommending your contact them and ask them about it.
When/if I ever get some spare time, I might try to put together an alternative version that uses some hardcoded plugin loading system, less likely to bother MMCACHE, but I must admit this is quite far from the top of the list…
Cheers
I have a spam comment which SK2 forced into moderation (it displays in a red box). When I click on “confirm all moderated as spam” nothing happens. The comment doesn’t get converted into spam & it’s still in a red box. I tried refreshing to see if clearing the cache would change anything & it didn’t.
Would you have any idea why this wouldn’t be working?
I use Scott Merrill²s Not2Me plugin which stops you fr. receiving e mail notification of yr. own blog comments. I installed the plugin & it worked for a while, but then stopped. I’m trying to figure out whether the problem lies with the plugin itself, entirely possible, or perhaps SK2 has also disabled this feature since it relates to WP’s comment settings. Would you have a sense whether SK2 might be involved
Also, a follow up from yesterday²s comment above
I just started using Peter Westwood²s SK Moderate plugin; Peter specified that you have to disable the Captcha Check feature for his plugin to work properly; After doing this, I couldn²t convert the spam comment to spam; When I reenabled Captcha Check then I could convert the comment to spam;
I²ve already e mailed Peter about this since it appears there might be an issue or conflict bet; his plugin and SK; I post this here just in case you might have any ideas on where the conflict might lie that²s causing this behavior;
Hi,
I installed SK2 according to the instructions but the problem is when I click the edit tab I get taken to wp/wp-admin/spamkarma2 which doesn’t exist. Any idea why this is happening?
Thanks,
Charmax
My answer was: Okay, yes please. Thank you.
Why does it say “nasty”? Thank you and yes please is good karma….
My mom always told me to say “yes please” and “thank you”…..
So why is everything a spam and deleted by karma?
sniff….sad sniff…..
does anyone else get a HUGE db file because of spamkarma? did i do something wrong? my db just grew by at least 15M. my host will not like this once they notice. is there anything i can do about this?
I don’t quite understand why SK isn’t GPL.
1) It’s impossible to make money with a GPL’d piece of software. You have to prominently display that SK (and any other component) is GPL, and that the source is available – so any get-rich-quick scheme simply isn’t going to work. So the reasons given simply don’t hold.
2) It makes it impossible to bundle SK with given GPL’d software, at least in practice: the bundle would be restricted by the same “please ask Dr. Dave license” as SK itself. (Imagine a software bundle that has a dozen or so licenses of that kind – it’s the exactly the license proliferation problem that recently started to nag the Open Source people.)
So, please, simply place SK under GPL. Or LGPL. Or whatever license you think is appropriate – the OSS has several licenses to choose from
Thanks.
Jo
Say what? Since when? Nothing is stopping me from either selling or buying a GPL’d piece of software. Perhaps you should read the GPL FAQ, or more specifically about the GPL page about selling free software.
Thankyou
I’d love a way to be able to hook non-comment submissions through Spam Karma, but I couldn’t find a hook in the documentation to allow for it. The idea would be to throw contact me/us forms through there. Now SK2 is handling all my nasty spam, they decided to go to my contact form (which I took down)
jó lenne
If you don’t like the GPL have you thought about creating a licence using this:
http://creativecommons.org/license/
I think a spammer managed to disable my Spam Karma 2 plugin last night. I’m sure this is a result of SUE, so if someone give me a hint as to which file I have set to the wrong R/W properties, I would REALLY appriciate it.
I think there’s still a bug in the redirect to the catcha page in spam_karma_2_plugin.php. I think you’re using the wrong variable to get_bloginfo. I believe it should be something like:
$location = get_bloginfo(‘siteurl’) . “/” . strstr(dirname(__FILE__), “wp-content/”) . “/” . sk2_second_chance_file .”?c_id=$comment_ID&c_author=” . urlencode($sk2_core->cur_comment->author_email);
in particular, the use of get_bloginfo(‘siteurl’) (rather than wp_url). The previous call returned something really strange (at least in wordpress 1.5.1.3), which included the title of my blog (which in my case had invalid url characters, it tried to redirect to http://osiris.laya.com/blog/%5BRobertChin%20retain%5D;/wp-content/plugins/SK2/sk2_second_chance.php?c_id=100&c_author=asdfasfd%40asdfasf.com rather than the correct http://osiris.laya.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/SK2/sk2_second_chance.php?c_id=100&c_author=asdfasfd%40asdfasf.com). Anyway, changing the variable it referenced worked for me. In my wordpress options, both my wordpress adress and blog URI are set to the same thing — http://osiris.laya.com/blog.
Ok… so this has me scratching my head…. I’m trying to add the comment hook so I can use the payload feature of SK2 in my new theme…. but because of the way it’s built, I actualy have two comment files. Actualy, three: comments.php, comments-standard.php, and a comments-jal-edit.php. The main comments.php page checks for a function and then includes either the jal-edit file, or the standard comments file. This means that the comment form, and subsequently the comment_hook, are in the two files, and not in the comments.php file. This seems to be causing a problem with the theme compatibility checker. What would be the best way to correct what ever is going on here? If you want to contact me directly, I can be reached through my site.
-tg
Techgnome
Your problem is a bit particular. Provided the hook is correctly inserted in the code (regardless of file) SK2 will work fine. However, the detection in your case will fail, since SK2 uses the comment scripts file names to open these files and directly check if the appropriate code is present… Here is an easy (if a bit dirty) workaround:
1) Insert the hook wherever you can/want, as long as it’s called from within the HTML form on every occasions.
2) To fool SK2′s detection, simply add a commented line somewhere in the code of ‘comments.php’ (the pop-up version too, if you have one) with the whole “do_action” line. SK2 will find it (nevermind that it’s commented) and happily inform the user that the theme is compatible.
Note to everybody else
The redirect bug was fixed (thanks to all those who pointed this out). You can either download the minor revision from the website or wait for a more substantial update in the next few days.
I suppose there are complications if Spam Karma interacts with a Bad Behavior protected site.
Checking a trackback Spam Karma sends a http-request to the sending side without setting the user agent. If the sending site is protected by Bad Behavior V 1.2.1 or V 1.2.2, this request is rejected cause the user agent is blank.
In the result the trackback gets a negative karma.
hmmm im using spam karma, too…but i don’t see the captcha image, is there some setting i need to change? all i did was install all the files included with the zip file.
thanks!
I use WordPress 1.5.1.3 and Spam Karma 2 final.
When a comment is posted the following error comes up:
Fatal error: Cannot access empty property in /is/htdocs/wp1005583_S8WFTKTDRU/www/wp-content/plugins/SK2/sk2_comment_class.php on line 150
However, the comment is posted. After a refresh the error is gone.
Can you help me with this?
Thanks
For those experiencing the “Fatal error: Cannot access empty property” error: simply update to the latest archive available on this server. It was fixed a few weeks ago (no update notice was sent, as the next version will be arriving soon anyway).
Just wanted to drop you a quick note that I’ve gotten SK2 fully integrated and compatible into my new theme right out of the box! Thanks for your help in getting around that auto detection deal.
Woot!
-tg
I’m a little confused about how SK2 works regarding spam. If I have a series of moderated comments enclosed by red boxes & say, 1 of them is a valid comment & the rest are spam–how do I manually spank ONLY the spam comments?
What I did was to checkmark some (but not all) of the spam comments. I couldn’t use the box that enabled me to manually spank all comments in red because one of the was a good comment). After checkmarking some of the bad comments I clicked on Remove Selected Entries. Does this manually spank them or just delete them w/o marking them as spam? Since the spam comments are not in the Spam Harvest I’m guessing that all I did was delete them & didn’t force them through the spam harvest.
If I just deleted them, is there still a way to recover them &/or run them through spam? Or am I out of luck? I still have the comment moderation e mail send to me via WP w. e mail & IP info about the spam comments. Should I just manually enter all that into the blacklist?
Hey Dave, not sure if anyone posted this before but I am getting an error which says ‘Can’t Fetch Comments’. The problem is that people post comment on my website but they can’t be published due to some setting in SK2 and I can’t moderate them due to this error.
I am using the latest SK2 version. Please help me with this.
Dave: Any chance you could look over my comment 337 & let me know how to handle a situation in which you have a group of moderated comments, one of which is a good comment & the others spam. Is there any way to manually spank say 4 of 5 comments as spam while preserving the single good comment?
Thank you so so so much.
Regarding handling Moderated Comments (outlined in red in the Spam Harvest list), the process is quite simple, even though it might not be that obvious at first:
1) recover any comment you see that may have been mistakenly moderated (you can do that in SK2′s screen by selecting the comment and clicking on ‘recover’)
2) click on “confirm all moderated” and all other moderated comments will be confirmed as spam (the red outline will disappear).
SK2.1 will improve the presentation of the Spam Harvest a teeny bit (bring moderated to the top).
THANKS FOR SCRIPT
PROpEcIA
Dr. Dave when you purge comments more then 30 days old I take you mean purge comments marked as spam more then 30 days old? Don’t want to purge actual comments, but the spam is pilling up.
To make my pages XHTML 1.1 compliant, I edited the file: sk2_javascript_plugin.php
Where it says , it should just say instead for the pages to validate correctly.
Other than that its a great plugin though & cuts down on a lot of work for me.
Thanks
Just a quick word in passing to all the smart boys who stop here and find it incredibly spiritual to type some random crap in the comment box and press “submit”, just to “prove the plugin doesn’t work”:
Had you made any use of the two or three remaining neurons wasted on your pitiful self by Mother Nature, you would have realized that your comments are *not* automated spam… they are dumb, yet fully human-generated, trolls… And they usually take you way more time to post than it takes me to click on that “send to the crapbox” button in SK2′s admin menu. My only regret in the whole thing being that none of you probably realize that you have been instantaneously added to SK2′s RBL lists, thus blacklisted from ever posting on, oh, 5 or 6 thousands WordPress blogs, plus all the other services that share our RBL server… Oh well, it’s my secret guilty pleasure…
Nonetheless, and because wasting even a second on that sort of stupidity is just demeaning to me and the human race as a whole, Comments will be closed on this post from now on (TBs and PBs are still open).
Thanks.
Antworten zu Nofollow Case by Case und rel=”external nofollow”…
Seit Veröffentlichung meines WordPress Plugins “Nofollow Case by Case” kamen einige Fragen auf, die ich teilweise schon in den Blogs der Fragenden direkt beantwortet habe. Hier noch einmal einige Erläuterungen:
1. Warum sollte ich in mei…
[...] Spam Karma 2 – Anti-Kommentar-Spam-System. [...]
WordPress Plugin: ma grosse liste…
Vu que la communauté WordPress (en Belgique) grandit de plus en plus, et (surtout) au détriment de Dotclear, et que d’autres se tâtent encore, je mets à disposition des intéressé(e)s la liste des plugins WordPress que j’utilise.
Tout cela parc…
WordPress Plugins I’m Currently Using…
It’s been a while since I posted the plugins that I use on this site. I’ve added a few more this week including the dofollow plugin and the top commentators plugin you can see in my sidebar. If you are using any plugins that you think I sho…
[...] I am sure Im not the only one that gets alot of comment spam. Check out this wordpress comment spam blocker called “Spam Karma“. [...]
Spammers, ahh… ii urasc! m-am saturat de spam asa ca……
…mi-am luat un caine anti-spam! Da un caine, nu crezi? Uite-l cum arata in dreapta (e intr-o mica pauza acum nu te lasa pacalit de figura lui blajina e doar bucuros ca nu esti spammer). Fiecare post de pe acest site va contine un avertisment pent…
Spam Karma…
Spam Karma jest już w wersji 2.3RC1.
Changes
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 up…
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……
WordPress Plugins, die man haben muss…
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Es gibt eine enorme Anzahl WordPress Plugins, da fällt es gerade dem Einsteiger schwer, das richtige Plugin zu finden. Daher möchte ich hier einmal eine L…
Spam Karma…
Current release: 2.3 Release Candidate 1 (at long last, released: 03/28/07)
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…
Install Spam Karma 2.3…
Installation Spam Karma 2 for WordPress first decided to install plugin for spam, I revered reviews and comments and chose Spam Karma 2, the full version of the plugin can be downloaded here……
SEO Plugin Spamkarma 2.3 (SK2) Plugin für Blogupdate und Blogscout Eintrag…
So, da SEO (Search Engine Optimierung) – Suchmaschienen Optimierung – in der heutigen Zeit ein wichtiges Schlagwort ist, habe ich ein extra Plugin das extra für die Suchmachienen Optimierung unter WordPress geschrieben wurde (http://www.wpseo.de...
CPR seems to conflict with WP-Cache?…
WP-Cache is a really great plugin. It saves a lot rendering time for the pages WordPress pulls out.
But it seems to be incompatible with plugins like SK2 and even my CPR which are both inserting a hidden field into the comments field. I guess also the …
Kampf dem Trackback-SPAM…
Nachdem ich mit dem Plugin “Math Comment Spam Protection Plugin” den SPAM bei den Kommentaren ganz erfolgreich minimiert habe, habe ich seit neustem Probleme mit Trackback-SPAM.
Jetzt werde ich mal das Plugin “Simple Trackback Valid…
erfolgreiche artikel – stöckchen…
Ja, ich weiß, Stöckchen sind im Moment nicht so beliebt in der Blogosphere, aber das kümmert mich wenig.
Also, das Stöckchen kommt von Thomas vom Fachinformatiker – SEO -Typo3 Blog. Komischer Titel für ein Blog, denkt ihr? Gibt…
Pottblog: Neues Layout und neue WordPress-Version…
So, einige Tage habe ich jetzt immer mal wieder unter der Haube gewerkelt – jetzt bin ich für’s erste fertig:
Es gibt ein neues Layout im Pottblog – auch wenn das nicht sooo neu aussieht. Außerdem wurde dann auch gleich mal die neue Wor…
Spam-Schutz?!…
Um (WordPress-) Blogs vor Spam zu schützen, gibt es mittlerweile nicht nur Anti-Spam-Plugins wie Spam Karma, die Spam-Kommentare und Trackbacks herausfiltern. Nein, auch kleinere Mathe-Aufgaben findet man immer häufiger als Spamschutz. Ich &#…
spam-karma…
…
Verwendete Plugins…
Dieser Beitrag enthält eine ständig aktualisierte Lister der von mir verwendeten Plugins. Derzeit sind 33 Plugins installiert: 21 aktive Plugins und 12 inaktive Plugins.
Aktive Plugins
Akismet 2.0.2Akismet checks your comments against the A…
WordPress 防止垃圾回覆(評論)外掛 Spam Karma 2.3…
經營網誌除了流量爆掉、網站被駭之外，最惱人的就是垃圾廣告(Spam)了，而且是防不勝防，每天都刪到手軟，實在惱人啊~~~~!
文章的回應(評論 comment)功能，除了可供一般訪客回覆之外，沒想…..
Trackbackspam und Kommentarspam leicht verhindern…
Spam ist mittlerweile für jeden, der ein Forum, ein Blog, ein Gästebuch oder eine sonst irgendwie interaktive Webseite betreibt, ein nerviges Thema. Spam auf Blogs kommt in zwei grundsätzlichen Formen: Spam über Trackbacks oder d…
Spam Karma…
Teils über 100 Spamkommentare am Tag – jetzt ist Schluss mit lustig
Ab heute läuft hier im Blog Spam Karma . Das manuelle Löschen der ganzen “nice” und “cool” Kommentare hat damit ein Ende.
……