PrefBlog

I seem to have a problem with comments.

PrefBlog uses a plug-in called WP-SpamShield to deflect the hundreds (literally!) of spam comments that flood in daily; regrettably, it appears to have gone berserk.

An Assiduous Reader notified me that his attempt to comment was frustrated due to the system thinking his comment was spam and telling him:

ERROR: Your comment appears to be spam.

Please go back and check all parts of your comment submission (including name, email, website, and comment content).

If you are a logged in user, and you are seeing this message repeatedly, then you may need to check your registered user information for spam data.

I couldn’t see any problems, so after a bit of back-and-forth I captured a comment attempt by him on the ‘blocked log’. Yes, it was rejected – with a code. I have attempted to look up the code on the maker’s website … and it seems my Access to the website has been forbidden, due to:

unusual traffic from your web browser, device, or network, resulting in firewall security measures limiting your access to this website.

So it seems that either their Unusual Traffic detector has gone berserk and is now blocking networks on a wholesale basis or that somebody in Canada has been Very Naughty Indeed.

If the problem doesn’t resolve itself in the next few days, I’ll uninstall the spam blocker and try another solution. In the meantime, I would appreciate Assiduous Readers attempting to comment on this post and notifying me if blocked.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2019 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.