I just upgraded to the newest WP, I’ve also chosen to not continue the use of the image authentication problem because a significant amount of spam was still coming through. If you have any problems with this new version, please let me know.
Update: This blog now uses an anti-spam program called Bad Behavior. It is aggressively anti-spam and therefore may result in some false positives. We advise you to read about What to do when Bad Behavior blocks you (or your friends) before posting. If you believe that this has happened to your comment (rather than it being rejected for moderation), please contact tekanji using the link on the sidebar.
Have you tried SpamKarma? It’s worked the best for me.
The thing I like about BB is that it doesn’t react to the content of the message and try to filter it after the fact, but rather goes after the root of things by examining the way that spam bots operate.
So far I’ve checked the logs and nothing that shouldn’t be banned has gotten banned, but I figured that just in case it would be best to get the info out there so someone doesn’t think that we deleted a comment just because we didn’t like it or something.