There is a fantastic modification of the Wordspew Shoutbox done by Pierre https://pierre.sudarovich.free.fr/
The best thing is, it blocks bots!
I don’t know how it will work if you have the Rudd-O version, but it works on the original Jalenack’s.
I have just installed it now at https://www.biggybank.com, as I was getting bot spam every day.
Pierre has done the following alterations (copied and pasted from his website with some slight language adjustments):
* it scans the three fields (message, user url, and name) for spam and doesn’t permit posting if there are some banned words
* the list of banned words works with Options –> Discussion –> Comments moderation list. It works with/without Javascript enabled. All you have to do is to add new banned words as soon as a spammer finds a way to bypass your list.
* number of spams blocked appears in the plugin configuration title
* automatic transformation of email address in clickable link
* automatic transformation of links: if links go outside of your blog then they will open in a new window, otherwise they will open in same window
* show the banned word in the alert box to the user, so regular users can adapt their language to the filter rules.
* for those who use WordPress 2.x, it correctly defines user name and path to smileys
* as the function CheckSpam is in the header, it immediatly reflects words added in the moderation list
* 05-10-2006 : added a new constraint to block bots: Users (who are not registered) have to enter a random string (all the 30 days) to “identify” themselves as “human” . After what they can play with the shoutbox. Pierre hopes it will be a good protection (one more ) against the spammers.
* 05-14-2006 : it will be hardier for spammers to bypass filters now, because it permits only one url per message (with/without javascript)
In addition, he has added sound functionality, so that a user can choose to have a sound played when someone leaves a message.
Anyhow, it took me seconds to install – all I did was replace the plugin files. I didn’t have to change any of the code that was already in my sidebar – it picked everything right up again. All I did was a small alteration in the css file to resize the box.
