The Askimet stats for the old SL for Nowt blog have proved to be interesting reading. WordPress no longer provides Askimet for its free hosted blogs, and I’ll bet I could tell you exactly when they withdrew it. Take a look at this:

Going way back, the blog received between 100 and 250 spam comments per month. But look at the rise that begins in September of 2010: a third again. And in October over half again. It stays steady during November, and then in December? WHAM.

I would hate to be a free WordPress user right now, as my blog (with its Askimet protection, which WordPress have thankfully not taken away from its blog community veterans) is receiving tens of spam comments per day (over 300, as you can see, in the first ten days of January this year). Askimet is catching all of these (it did miss one today, but sent it into my moderation queue because the commenter was new to the blog. The linked email address of the commenter was trying to sell insurance, even though his [ slightly nonsensical ] comment was bland and passable).

Trying to wade your way through that mass of spam comments without Askimet? *shudder*