Spam Comments

I have been receiving many spam comments and marking them as spam as and when they are received, but I’m not sure what this is achieving.

When you mark a comment as spam, what information are you actually using to help identify future spam comments?

I often receive spam comments which are word-for-word copies of comments I’ve previously marked as spam, and yet I have to mark them as spam also. I’d like to see the spam filter learn from each comment previously marked as spam so that it can identify similar ones as spam automatically, by making comparisons with comments that are already in the spam bin.

At present it appears that marking a comment as spam does little more than store it away from view.