This blog has been getting pounded by spam comments recently. WordPress is doing a good job of filtering the spam out so that no one sees it except me, but I'm getting tired of deleting all this nonsense, so I've been closing comments on the handful of posts most popular with spammers.
My spammy foes like to congregate in the Webloggery category. I suppose I should rename that section since it's attracting unwanted (probably automated) attention. I could rename it PleaseDon'tSpamMe. But that's a little too polite.
Anyway, if you want to comment on a particular post and can't, my apologies. If the spam storm doesn't let up soon, I'll try to find a way to completely block the IPs that are causing the problem.
C., are you using the Askimet anti-spam plug-in for WordPress? If not, I recommend it: it works really well, and when you mark items as spam, Askimet "learns" to screen out similar items in the future. In 18 months, it's mistaken only two legitimate comments for spam, and it's let only a handful of real spam comments through.
No, for some reason when I first set up the blog I decided not to use Akismet, but I'll take a look at that again. Anything to better thwart these guys! Thank you for the recommendation.
I've installed it, and already I'm noticing a difference!! Many thanks for the good advice.