The b2evolution blog software that I use is not as robust as wordpress in some ways, but it had other things I liked that made it worth choosing for me. I installed several blogs when I got started doing this and tried them out. This worked best for me.

I have looked at the other options for comment moderation that might work for me. I want to leave it turned on tho. I get tons of referrer hits because of b2e’s referrer statistics function.

I have deleted the stats section from my blog and have edited the .htaccess file to help cut down on spam as well. I will keep testing and if it happens again will probably switch to another method.

As for your final sentence: Sorry, but my three-meter rod is out of commission. Oh, but then, I wouldn’t use it on that line anyway.

I’m assuming your comment got caught for moderation because of the multiple links. At least “it” knew to moderate it and not put it in the spam. Weirdly, earlier my two replies got caught as spam. I mean seriously, am I going to spam myself?

Just go here:
http://lishost.org/support/
to link to Urchin–or, for that matter, directly here:
http://lishost.org:8082/
[Which you'll want to bookmark.]
All you need is your accountname and password.

If you have problems, shoot Blake a line.

I can check all three of my sites (waltcrawford.name, walt.lishost.org, and citesandinsights.info) from the one address. Very easy, VERY informative.

I agree with you. And from what you’ve said on your blog, I imagine you get a lot more than me. Akismet is working wonderfully for me so far. We’ll see how it holds up as the new template is supposed to be optimized for search engines [not why I chose it, but nothing to snort about either]. It does seem as if the spam has shot up as well in the last day but, so far, Akismet has caught it all.

I have no idea what my traffic is anymore as I haven’t taken the time to learn how to read my log files. Guess I ought to do that one of these days.

Maybe I am gaining some benefit from Blake’s server tuning, too.

I do appreciate that many people get for more spam than I do visits, so I can understand the “necessity” of such measures, but they just seem so antithetical to conversational-style blogging. I also understand not everyone is trying to have a conversation….

Anyway, Chadwick was more than gracious and was happy to know that there may be an issue with his implementation.

I can appreciate that some sites really do need capcha-style tools because they get way too much spam or because the owners don’t have time to check what does show up. But I’d like to think of Capcha as a third-to-last resort (the last two being full moderation or turning off comments entirely).