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Introducing WP-SpamFree, Say Goodbye to Spam, and Your Comments Too
Beware of the Comment Eater
EDIT: I’m terribly sorry for this plugin rant, with which I disrespected the plugin author WebGeek in the process. Despite the seemingly negativity of this post, I just like to say that WP-SpamFree remains a great plugin. Unless you run into the same problem as I did, it works like a charm and really lives up to its name.
When Owen recommended me this WP-SpamFree plugin months back, I was really impressed. I even recommended it to Mike of Anime Diet because of how it really made our blog virtually spam free. I had never felt so free from the shackles of spam! On a random note, we should make a naming convention for addressing Mike of Anime Diet and Mike of anime|otaku, it gets confusing at times. And no, suggesting “the Mike Owen loves” and “the Mike that Owen hates” won’t make things any better.
But I digress. As we all know, nothing in this world is perfect, not even the ultimate spamkiller WP-SpamFree. Aside from requiring Akismet, this plugin has another MAJOR drawback (which made it EPIC FAIL, at least for me – yes I know I was being too harsh earlier for branding it FAIL, when it’s not): It devours not only yummy spams, but scrumptious comments too! If you’re one of my poor commentators who encountered this error message when you submitted the comment you worked so hard for:
Sorry, there was an error. Please enable JavaScript and Cookies in your browser and try again.
…I’m sorry to say that the killer plugin devoured it 
A friend of mine who commented on the blog months back was the first ever person I know who encountered this problem. But then it seemed as if this never happened to other visitors (or so I thought), hence I continued using it anyways. How foolish I was to not have realized any sooner that more comments were being devoured behind the scenes. Thanks to Kabitzin for reminding me about this issue I should’ve looked into beforehand =__=
I’m not sure who else experienced this, but so far only Caitlin informed me about this. Guess our commentators are too shy to inform us about this problem? lol.
That said, I’m happy to say that I finally uninstalled this comment-eater plugin, so keep your comments coming, people! No monster shall devour them now 
P.S. As Kabitzin pointed out, the problem with the plugin seems to stem from plugin conflict issues (something also which escaped my mind when I was writing this post). But with the tons of plugins I have, and the headache I’m gonna get to figure out which plugin is causing this conflict, for now, I’m going to say goodbye to WP-SpamFree first.
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13 comments for “Introducing WP-SpamFree, Say Goodbye to Spam, and Your Comments Too”
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spam
spam
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Someone had to say it
@bobofet: o.O
That’s rather strange since I haven’t come across that problem. Though I do believe I’m having a problem with pingbacks and trackbacks on post despite allowing them on the settings. But as you said, not everything is perfect, but at least this works much better than Spam Karma.
Spam Karma used to be pretty awesome (and in some ways it was better than Akismet), but it always had problems with spam pingbacks. Even worse, the plugin author got tired of supporting SK through all the WP updates and stated that he will no longer support the plugin.
At first Akismet identified a lot of valid comments as spam, but it seems to have improved greatly with time. The occasional spam still gets through, but I’d say that Akismet has been decent lately.
So what spam protection are you using now?
BTW, to be fair, it seems that the problems may stem from a conflict with another plugin. It may not be worth your trouble, but the plugin author of WP-SpamFree seems to be trying to work around all conflicts and has a support forum.
@Adun: good for you then ^^ The tons of plugins I have is probably to be blamed for all this (as was pointed out by Kabitzin)
@Kabitzin: I’m still using Akismet, and I noticed the improvements as well. So even without SpamFree everything is still ok~ I saw that thread about the SpamFree issue not too long ago, and with the number of plugins I have, I’d say the problem stems from conflicting plugins indeed. But I don’t really want to waste time and energy (and headaches) trying to figure out which plugin it’s incompatible with, disabled one plugin for the “greater good”
I’m sorry to hear about the problem you’ve had. However it would have been nice if you had contacted me first or at least attempted to troubleshoot before writing a negative blog post.
I probably would have been able to help you figure out the problem quickly. I don’t mind if someone doesn’t like the plugin – all I ask is that people are going to review it, they be fair. People may not read read all the way down to the bottom of the comments to see that it was a plugin conflict.
I think the other “Mike” prefers being called Michael–that’s how he usually signs himself, so I guess he can be Michael?
In either case thanks for the info about Wp-Spamfree; fortunately, I don’t have the conflicting plugins installed, so I will probably still be giving it a shot when the website redesign goes up.
@WebGeek: Sorry about that master WebGeek, yes I admit to being a fool for not bearing in mind the hard work you’ve done for this plugin, and for that I need to be spanked. m(_ _)m
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go edit this post now that I’ve been able to repent from my mistakes.
@Mike: hehe, well Michael and Mike it is then
And yes, do give this a shot if you can. It’s great, if not for the commenting problem >_<
I’ll go grab blissmo for the bunny spanking.
@Kabitzin: Nooooo…!!! not brutal bunny butcher blissmo please
*hides in her burrow fortress shielded with impenetrable kekkai barriers*
@usagijen: No worries. If you do need help with anything…let me know. I don’t bite.
@WebGeek: hehe, thank you very much ^^