I finally took some actual action and activated Akismet. I partly want to get rid of the spam, and partly just want to see if this will actually work. There are other methods (including a suggestion made in a comment to me by a kind stranger) and other anti-spam plugins, but quite a few people have sung the praises of this one so I’ll give it a try.
Because of this, comments and pings can now be sent without waiting for me to validate them (unless your message is mistaken as spam and then you’ll need to have a little patience).
We’ll see how this goes. I really don’t like having to moderate every comment or turn on required name and email as I appreciate the speed and anonymity of the internet.
I’d just like to note that so far, in the brief time this plugin has been active for, it’s found 43 spam and only got two of those wrong.
Nice work. I liked your site… Best regards!