This post grew out of https://upsdownsfamilyhistory.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/one-bloggers-comments-requirements.
As much as I wish there was another option for WordPress comments, I have decided to go with comments requiring me to approve them. This works well most of the time. Recently it didn’t work so well as a person responded to a comment I made in response to her comment. I had approved the earlier comment. For some reason, WordPress decided her response was Spam and put it in the Spam folder. I missed it for several days as I don’t usually get a lot of Spam comments. When I checked Spam last night or maybe early this morning, I noticed her comment had been sent there. I immediately approved it.
Ideally, the option I would like for WordPress to add is the ability to selectively allow some commenters’ comments to be auto-approved. As it is now, I have two options:
Before a comment appears Before a comment appears Comment must be manually approved
Comment author must have a previously approved comment
I am not sure how the second option works in the above copy/pasted as I have tried it both ways, checked and unchecked.
My third option would have to override both options above as there are some who comment I have no problem with being able to comment with needing me to approve them. A handful of spammers would get around Comment author must have a previously approved comment by posting a comment that would be approved, then posting Spam comments.
Years ago, I had a free e-mail account that got hit by a spammer in a huge way! Thankfully, it had a small MB limit. By huge way, the spammer hit me with auto-generated spam at a rate faster than I could delete the e-mails. It maxed out my e-mail limit. It took a while, but I saw where I could disable receiving e-mail so I turned it off for a day. It took a while to delete the 10,000 e-mails they had sent me. I believe it was auto-generated was I could delete 100 e-mails fast, and before I could do anything else, another 100 Spam e-mails from the individual flooded my Inbox.