OK, after I received my first spam comments (see this post), I decided to do something about it. And as I am using worpress 2.0.4, there is a quite simple solution:

1. Sign up for a user account on www.wordpress.com.
2. As soon as you have created an account, you will be sent an eMail with your individual AKISMET API key. You do not need to have a blog created, but… hey, why not? It’s for free! If you have requested a blog on wordpress.com, you can get the API key from the “Edit profile” page if you need it again.
3. Just enable the AKISMET plugin, then go to the AKISMET configuration and type in your API key.

That’s all. Now you can see all spam comments that AKISMET has caught under “Manage -> Akismet spam”.

Important note:
Do not share your AKISMET API key, as it works similar to a passwort and is just meant to be used by yourself!

Another fight spamming tool which attempts to hide eMail-addresses from ‘bots’ by “replacing any email addresses in your posts and pages with an obsfucated version” can be found here:

• Anti-email spam:
  urbangiraffe.com/plugins/anti-email-spam

I have installed both of the mentioned plugins and I am wondering how they will work. Time (or number of spam comments still getting through) will tell…