The comments form is finally back on my blog, several months after I got overwhelmed with spam (40,000+ spam comments). I had implemented an anti-spam filter using the akismet web service but it never worked, if it has worked for you drop me a line. So I decided to remove it and replace it with the reCAPTCHA web service, I found an excellent and easy to integrate plugin here This may not stop the occasional run in the mill spammer but it will discourage if not stop the automated spam bots that plagued my blog. Chris thank you for pushing me to fix the code.

For more information on CAPTCHA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha