Comments.
I’ve been trying some Wordpress plugins to stop spam. At some point, one began to seemingly spontaneously block all comments. My deep apology to anyone who tried to post but was blocked. That plugin is now disabled and comments are working.
Comment moderation is still on, of course.
Update: I fixed the problm thanks to some help from the Wordpress support forum.
Update: 20 December 2004: Among others, the words “health insurance” are now banned from comments to prevent spam. You could substitute something like “health ins,” for example.
December 21st, 2004 at 17:43
I do not quite understand what the “comment spam” is all about. Is it a machine sending it or is it people? Confused… :(
December 21st, 2004 at 17:52
It’s people using computer programs. They do it because search engines re-index blogs every so often. The comment spammer files a “comment” that is thinly disguised. Really it is just a link to their web site that sells something. The search engine reindexes my web site and assumes that the “spam” link is legitimate. Having comment-spammed thousands of times, their number of web site hits goes up slightly. As I am not making any money from their sales, nor would I want to, their objective is to hijack my site for their own unlimited profit. Thus, I don’t allow comment spam.