I use fairly aggressive filtering of incoming comments to hold back the spam storm, but that still leaves me deleting dozens of (unpublished, but in the system) spam comments every day or two. I'm now trying out a simple challenge-response method as a way of blocking automated spam.

Every time you enter a comment you'll be asked to type in a particular word in a box below the comment entry.

This word is static, so regular posters should feel free to let it auto-fill; I'll only change it if a spam system is able to figure it out.

For now, I'm going to leave the hold-for-moderation on as a general rule, just to make sure everything is working as it should.