Bloody Akismet

You know how I mentioned that I was being spammed by link-droppers on dofollow posts? Well, this was despite running Akismet. It turns out, that on top of *not* picking up the blatant link-dropping, it was falsely listing some of my long-time readers as spam! Fook knows how long that’s been going on, I never usually check my Akismet queue.

I wonder if I can convert my old score based spam prevention into a WordPress plugin. If nothing else it’ll give me a hands-on look at actually creating a proper plugin. (This is the part where you guys tell me where to start…)

Update: I’ve disabled Akismet and I’m trying out Spam Karma 2 instead. I liked Spam Karma even less! Please let me know if you see any errors, or have any problems commenting.

June 3rd, 08

Posted by Jem at 08:50 GMT


25 comments on “Bloody Akismet”

  1. Rachael

    Start at the beginning!

    As for akismet? Pfft… it’s a scam. I had little spam but heard about this “amazing” spam-blocking thingy. Now I get loads of spam. However, akismet catches it all. Isn’t that just amazing?

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 9:10 am
  2. Robbie

    It would most likely be easy to make a WP plugin. I don’t know where to start, unfortunately.

    I’ve had a few spam pingbacks, and I don’t even get any real traffic.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 10:22 am
  3. Enzo

    Perhaps you could use Spam Karma 2. I’ve used it before and it has this scoring system that you’re talking about.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 11:15 am
  4. Vera

    I was just thinking of installing akismet, but I guess it might not be a good idea. Let me know what you’ll do, as I’m getting tired of spam as well. Not a lot, but enough.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 11:22 am
  5. Jem

    Perhaps you could use Spam Karma 2. I’ve used it before and it has this scoring system that you’re talking about.

    Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll look into it, thanks Enzo.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 11:42 am
  6. Teesee

    Don’t be distracted from creating your own plugin… I know you want to do it ;)

    I’ve just started looking at the Facebook development tools… pretty nifty. Spent all day playing with them at work. My work has nothing to do with Facebook, but that’s not the point.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 12:03 pm
  7. Teesee

    Gah, I’ve been violated by an ugly CAPTCHA. My eyes are burning.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 12:04 pm
  8. Jem

    Did you get it the second time as well Teesee?

    Akismet isn’t good enough, Spam Karma 2 seems over-vigorous. Oh noes, I’ll have to think about writing my own plugin :p

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 12:08 pm
  9. Teesee

    No I didn’t get it the second time round. That can only be a good thing ;)

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 12:12 pm
  10. SarahG

    WP Plugins are easy for the front end, sometimes a little tricker on the backend. Your best option would be to dissect an existing plugin that does similar to what you want (ie. akismet or spam karma in this instance) and see what hooks it uses, as in this case it would need a hook to filter the comment through to your code.

    The options page (if you’d need one) is pretty easy to do though. Give me a shout if you go ahead with it and I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction :)

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 12:32 pm
  11. Hannah

    Weird, Akisment works great for me. But it would be awesome for you to write a spam plug-in ;3

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 1:50 pm
  12. Melissa

    I don’t have Askimet installed and get hardly any spam. Before (when it was installed) I got around 30 spam comments per day…

    Your scoring system sounds good, hope you end up writing that plugin.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 2:19 pm
  13. barbilee

    I have been spmed too up the ass from dumb pills to drama :( its liek never ending is it ture that if you make it as spam 3 times in anyones worpress it will be marked as spam for everyone?

    and i was thinkign of installign abotu 3 diff ones

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 4:31 pm
  14. Peter Green

    I have always used Akismet and have been amazed at how good it is!
    I find this all rather confusing?
    I have all (ha ha, there’s not many) comments come through moderation and all spam comments have been caught by Akismet for several years now.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 4:50 pm
  15. Veronique

    It’s time for Jim to put on his super hero suit and save the internet with a super plugins! :D

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 5:03 pm
  16. Josh

    Have you considered Defensio, and how about Bad Behaviour?

    I was once blocked by Akismet, so it’s not faultless certainly… but I should think that all spam fighters have their bad moments.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 6:19 pm
  17. Maria

    Well, I know you’re not too fond of CAPTCHAs, but perhaps it might be worth considering? Or you could just keep Akismet and say that if some can’t go through, then to send you the comment?

    I have heard good things about Bad Behavior though. It could be work a try.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 7:54 pm
  18. Stephanie

    Jem, please, you know you’ve been dying for an excuse to write a WP plug-in for a quite a bit now ;)

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 8:29 pm
  19. Julie

    I personally don’t have problem with Akismet. It puts in spam actual spam and approves non-spam comments.

    Comment added: June 3rd, 08 @ 8:57 pm
  20. Noellium

    I don’t have any problems with Akismet either. I think there was only one time where an authentic comment was labeled as spam, but that was it. And it seems to be pretty good at catching actual spam. :/

    Comment added: June 4th, 08 @ 8:46 am
  21. Vickie

    Strange. I swear by Akismet.

    Comment added: June 4th, 08 @ 1:23 pm
  22. Jem

    Well, just to give you guys a clue as to how troublesome it’s being - over half of the comments on this post alone were caught in the Akismet queue.

    Comment added: June 4th, 08 @ 1:28 pm
  23. Melissa

    What do you think about this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/

    I’ve been thinking about using that with WP just to try to stop spam all together. The only thing that’s questionable is that it won’t let people who have JavaScript or cookies disabled to post a comment unless they turn it back on. The plugin description says that the benefits outweigh that inconvenience though.

    Would be cool if you wrote a plugin, you know I’d test it! :)

    Comment added: June 4th, 08 @ 8:35 pm
  24. Melissa

    Omg! I think I was just blocked as spam! *cries* Curse you Akismet!!!! It’s weird…I’ve also lately been blocked on Cristina’s and Sofia’s websites as well. Think Akismet is revenging itself?! O.o

    Comment added: June 4th, 08 @ 8:37 pm
  25. Maria

    I saw this on the Wordpress feed today and thought it might be something good to look at for you:
    http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2008/06/08/hot-or-not-typepad-antispam/

    Comment added: June 9th, 08 @ 1:12 am

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