Comments on: Tips for Fighting Spam – Part 1

By: Carrie Mumford

Carrie Mumford — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 03:06:50 +0000

Hi Adrienne!
I know we talked about this over email, but I’ll post a response here to in case anyone else has run into this.

To stop spammers from signing up as a subscriber on your WordPress.org site, all you need to do is go to Settings > General in your WordPress dashboard, and then un-tick the option that says ‘Membership – anyone can register.’ That way the sneaky spammers can sign up to your WordPress instance. They’re likely hoping that you have your default new subscriber role (just below the Membership tick box) to something high enough for them to gain access to your site.

Glad you caught them!

By: Adrienne Furrie

Adrienne Furrie — Tue, 29 May 2012 20:36:39 +0000

Me again! Super quick question – I received a new subscriber today who was clearly spammy – they’re email address was so and so @sealyposturpedicreviews.net – so anyway I went to go into my subscriber list to delete them but it wasn’t even at option, instead it had a little R with a circle around it beside their name – weird. And then I noticed that the only other person in my subscriber list who also had the same image beside it was ME! So somehow they had signed themselves up as a User, not with administrator status or anything but still, left me feeling a little odd – in your experience with wordpress is this anything to be concerned about or is this pretty normal?? Feel free to not know the answer and tell me to go look somewhere else for help!!!!

By: Carrie Mumford

Carrie Mumford — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:33:46 +0000

Hello Kate!

I’m so glad you’re finding the posts useful. Let me know if you have any questions or anything you’d like me to cover in upcoming installments :)

I use an awesome email program called Emma (http://myemma.com/) to send out my emails on this blog, so I can add in your first name easily — in fact, it’s already been added. You’ll see it the next time I send out an email.

Thanks for dropping by!

By: 4amWriter

4amWriter — Tue, 29 May 2012 09:18:13 +0000

This was very helpful. You’re turning into a great resource for me, Carrie. Thanks! And, yes, the email sent to me was addressed as ‘friend’. I didn’t know you could personalize your posts, but if you get around to it, you could change it to ‘Kate’. But don’t trouble yourself if it’s too much!

Have a funtabulous day :)

By: Carrie Mumford

Carrie Mumford — Mon, 28 May 2012 20:26:29 +0000

Thanks Rachel! That’s one of the worst parts about spam for me: it makes me suspicious of regular Joes and Joans as well as spammers :( It can be really hard to tell if a new poster is a spammer or a nice person. The email address or website is always the deciding factor for me.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:01:26 +0000

Wow, thanks for the heads up! I’m pretty sure I approved some spam on my blog and had no idea. Great post, as always.

By: Carrie Mumford

Carrie Mumford — Sun, 27 May 2012 04:26:45 +0000

That’s great! I have had a few people ask me about stopping spammers (and I just had to crack down on them myself), but I wasn’t sure how much interest there was out there. Good to know I’m not alone in my desire to learn ways to banish spam :)

By: Adrienne Furrie

Adrienne Furrie — Sun, 27 May 2012 04:17:57 +0000

The boxing photo made me laugh! Such a perfect choice for this article, who doesn’t feel like knocking the socks off stupid spammers – there’s some seriously bad karma out there coming their way….;)

Spam mgmt a topic I need to learn a lot more about so I look forward to receiving the rest of your series.