brockangelo

This plugin schedules a daily event using wp_cron that deletes all comments marked “spam” in the database, then optimizes the comments table.
Brief reason why I made such a low-tech plugin:
Akismet catches all the spam, but when I was looking at the size of my backups one day, 
I noticed that there were large numbers of comment spam across several sites that were undeleted and they 
made the databases fairly large. So I setup a cron job on my server that deletes the spam.
Since I had never written a plugin, I thought this might be helpful for those who do not have 
a dedicated server, shell access to their site, or the knowledge of (or interest in ) cron to set this up.
Spam is not deleted until you start the schedule after the plugin is activated. I created buttons 
to start and stop the schedule if you need that layer of control. There is also a button for deleting all spam manually.

Delete Spam Daily

Uses wp_cron to delete comments each day that are marked "spam" in the database.

berkux

Effortlessly define and manage cron jobs with execution URLs and WP shortcodes. The plugin monitors cron jobs, retries failed executions as needed, and sends status updates via email.
With “Cron Setup and Monitor – Get URL Cron” you can:
<ul>
<li>Add, edit, and delete cron jobs to request HTTP URLs or WordPress shortcodes at defined times with various intervals.</li>
<li>Verify the retrieved result by checking for a required string or JSON field to ensure the request was successful.</li>
<li>Retry the HTTP URL or shortcode request multiple times in case of failures.</li>
<li>Display all cron jobs in the WordPress installation, including those independent of this plugin.</li>
<li>Manually execute cron jobs.</li>
<li>Log requests and show OK or FAIL status in a database-backed log.</li>
<li>Send emails for each cron job execution, including start attempt and result.</li>
<li>Option to send emails only on failure.</li>
<li>System Check page: verify PHP version, WordPress cron status, loopback requests, outgoing HTTP, and SSL support.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Usage</h4>
<ol>
<li>Go to ‘Basic Settings’ in the plugin menu to set basic settings (e.g. e-mail address for status messages).</li>
<li>Go to ‘Set CronJobs’ to manage cron events: set URL or WordPress shortcode, interval, start date, etc.</li>
<li>Save the defined cron jobs.</li>
<li>Manually execute a cron job by clicking “Execute Job”.</li>
<li>Check plugin menu ‘Show CronJobs’: the scheduled cron jobs “geturlcron_event-” should be listed there.</li>
<li>Check plugin menu ‘Show Logs’: completed jobs show OK or FAIL status.</li>
<li>If an e-mail address is defined, e-mails are sent for each attempt and result.</li>
</ol>

Cron Setup and Monitor – Get URL Cron

Manage cron jobs, monitor tasks, retry failures, and send email alerts when something goes wrong.

Delete Spam Daily vs Cron Setup and Monitor – Get URL Cron