I'm using Akismet for my spam protection on my web page. It won't even let users post something like, "Hey guys check this out!". I was hoping that I could just get rid of links and have them check the posters IP to see if it had been logged, but not block something so simple.
Is there a way to decrease the harshness through Akismet? I'm using the .NET 2.0 library here http://www.codeplex.com/wikipage?ProjectName=AkismetApi
I'd suggest not using Akismet at all and just managing it yourself. You could write a regex to remove the links from postings: http://www.jhartig.com/2010/02/perfect-regex-for-removing-links-when.html
Instead of using one of these anti-spam engines, have you thought about using Facebook the way TechCrunch does? It is very effectively at not allowing spam or flamewars because it's not anonymous.
The other things to use is ReCaptcha, to keep the bots out which is probably the cause of your spam problems in the first place. http://www.google.com/recaptcha