Sock'Em SPAMbots

CAPTCHA fields inhibit both human and robot participation in important kitty-related discussions. Sock’Em SPAMbots exists to take a more seamless approach to SPAM blocking, placing the burden on the robots, not the humans. Any combination of the following can be enabled:

• Javascript: require basic Javascript support, and in the process prove the user visited the actual comment form (instead of just submitting straight to WP).
• Cookies: require basic cookie support, and again, prove the user visited the site before submitting a comment.
• Honeypot: generic formbots will often populate all form fields with gibberish, so we can assume that if text is added to an invisible field, something robotic is happening!
• Speed: automated scripts complete comment forms with inhuman speed, thus if submissions happen really quickly, we can assume it is a robot doing the submitting!
• Links: reject comments with excessive number of links.
• Disable trackbacks or pingbacks independently of one another.

Requirements

• WordPress 3.6 or later.
• PHP 7.3 or later.

Please note: it is not safe to run WordPress atop a version of PHP that has reached its End of Life. Future releases of this plugin might, out of necessity, drop support for old, unmaintained versions of PHP. To ensure you continue to receive plugin updates, bug fixes, and new features, just make sure PHP is kept up-to-date. 🙂

Privacy Policy

This plugin makes use of the same “Personal Data” WordPress does when parsing comment form submissions.

When the optional debugging mode is enabled — which should never be the case on a public-facing site! — all comment form submissions are logged to a file on the local server.

When the optional cookie requirement test is enabled, a small cookie will be placed on each visitor’s machine. These cookies are not personally identifiable or used for any kind of tracking purposes; they merely enable the plugin to answer the question, “Do you support cookies?”