I've been doing a few site revisions here and there, mostly housekeeping, and have been constantly fighting a never-ending battle against spam. I have been looking through the list of things people have done to get rid of spam, and have seen everything from the simple "hide a form element" method to the much more elaborate MT-Blacklist Plugin. I finally settle on an initial tool that doesn't require excessive editing (yet). I still feel the blacklist tool is by far the best, but I am not quite ready to go back and get SimpleComments and Threaded Comments working with the plugin. The Intermediate solution then (since blacklisting spam URLs isn't an option) is to employ some very fuzzy logic in the analysis of comments and pings. I'm actually a fan of the Bayes method, so I was excited to see an MT plugin for it. While I prefer a blacklist for speed, a Bayes routine can have a 99.98% success rate with 0 false positives. Suck on that spammers. And if you happen to use MT, pick up the plugin from James' web site. It doesn't take anything major to install, and it is rather effective in its filtering methods.
Incidentally, I wonder if LiveJournal has ever given thought to comment spam...
In response to "Get Your Features Outta My Functions":
Amusingly enough, this entry also provided the blog’s first “comment spam” to serve as a test. Thanks Online Casino, where would I be without you?