Andy Beard - Internet Business Systems Discussion - Latest Comments in Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Drew — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:18:50 -0000

I thought I was one of the few having troubles with Akismet, but now that I read the comments here I understand that I have to switch games towards Defensio. Thanks for the great tips peeps! I was seriously looking for an alternative to keep things clean on my blogs. Now I know what to choose.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Drew — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:18:50 -0000

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

igorthetroll — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:06:40 -0000

If anyone is interested in an alternative to Akismet you are welcome to use PHSDL Spam filter www.phsdl.net which harvests Spam domains from my honeypot forum.

I have developed the system primarily to stop Spam to my forum and my blog. Most of the domains on the Spam list are Zlob Trojan Malware and other redirect domains. The system will not stop passive comment Spam, but that you can moderate yourself through WP comment moderation. These domains are the nasty one's that kill your blog for Google!

I have been using the system on my blog for four months now, and it works perfectly. Still my blog does not get as many visitors as Andy's..:) So he has more Spammers than me! But in these four months I must have only gotten 10 Spam attempts pass the PHSDL filter that I moderated via WP comment moderation module.

The system is non commercial, so you have to take it as is. I am allowing bloggers to use it for free, as long as it is for a personal blog and not a business blog. So if you are not going TechCrunch50 any time soon, you are welcome to it!

How it works? I will give you a snippet of PHP code that you will add to the top of wp-comments-post.php When comments are submitted by a commentator they will be checked against the Spam domains in PHSDL database. If there is a positive match of a domain url in the comments to PHSDL list, comments will not be added to your post and the Spammer will get a nasty Splash screen identifying that their domain is a Spam domain. I have set the script to time out, so if my server is down, for what ever reason, your blog will not be effected! The plus side of this system is that the Spammers' domains get indexed by Google via PHSDL Hot Black List. So if one is to Google for the caught domain it will show it on the Black List!

So if you are interested in the filter please email me
admin at phsdl.net I will send you the script code with authorization password. You should backup all your WP files especially wp-comments-post.php before installing the script. Also it is not a plugin, so you may need to re-add the script to your WP after any WP version upgrade. I will not be responsible for your blog!

As Andy said, Akismet is hivethink that impedes creative communication, by having mass-community of bloggers decide if a commentator is a Spammer or not. If a comment is controversial and it is labeled as Spam by the author of a blog, and then that commentator is barred from commenting on other blogs, that is destructive not productive for the blogger's community as a whole!

Please take a look at PHSDL website and email me if you are interested. Let's fight Spam not commentators!

P.S. If you are a power blogger and get tons of comments that my server will need to filter, and you are using up a lot of the server's resources, I may ask you to contribute to the maintenance of the server, depending on the server's load with relationship to other participants of this project. The project is not for profit, so you should not worry about this!

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

igorthetroll — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:06:40 -0000

If anyone is interested in an alternative to Akismet you are welcome to use PHSDL Spam filter www.phsdl.net which harvests Spam domains from my honeypot forum.

Please take a look at PHSDL website and email me if you are interested. Let's fight Spam not commentators!

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

MichelleMacPhearson — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:03:38 -0000

My favorite is leaving a link to one of my own blog posts in a newer blog post (trackback) and finding it in the Akismit queue.

I'm trackback spamming MYSELF, apparently. Thanks Akismit, brilliant.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

MichelleMacPhearson — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:03:38 -0000

My favorite is leaving a link to one of my own blog posts in a newer blog post (trackback) and finding it in the Akismit queue.

I'm trackback spamming MYSELF, apparently. Thanks Akismit, brilliant.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Mark McCullagh — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:19:17 -0000

I'm not too concerned about the comments left on my blog since I've become used to checking my Akismet file to see if any legitimate comments got flagged as spam.

I do find it really annoying that lately it seems that most comments I leave on other blogs are not appearing.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Mark McCullagh — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:19:17 -0000

I'm not too concerned about the comments left on my blog since I've become used to checking my Akismet file to see if any legitimate comments got flagged as spam.

I do find it really annoying that lately it seems that most comments I leave on other blogs are not appearing.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

The Vancouver Blog — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:32:03 -0000

I use askimet since 2 years and I have to de-spam regularly relevant comments considered as spam.

Generally speaking I am satisfied with the tool.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

The Vancouver Blog — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:32:03 -0000

I use askimet since 2 years and I have to de-spam regularly relevant comments considered as spam.

Generally speaking I am satisfied with the tool.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Lord Matt — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:30:44 -0000

The problem with a collective store is that it is a collective store. The way most email spam solutions work are (a) preset rules or (b) a system that learns what you think of as spam.

The idea is to combine these and that would leave akismet in the cold. I use a bayesian filter which I train to recognise two things spam and ham. A positive ham report publishes the comment while a positive spam report blocks it. A fail on both drops it through to be published leaving me to train the filter or not as need be.

Whenever I am sure that there is no spam in the comments I can train on all comments to keep the ham test up to date. Although the spammers try to trick the system by using unspammy words they still do not use words with the same frequency as in real comments and the filter is just as effective.

However with so many people submitting data for testing to akismet it is easy to introduce noise into the signal. Sadly this is part of the design.

the ideal spam stopper (like spam assassin) takes the opinion of many different tests. This would be the ideal solution to comment spam too.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Lord Matt — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:30:44 -0000

The problem with a collective store is that it is a collective store. The way most email spam solutions work are (a) preset rules or (b) a system that learns what you think of as spam.

However with so many people submitting data for testing to akismet it is easy to introduce noise into the signal. Sadly this is part of the design.

the ideal spam stopper (like spam assassin) takes the opinion of many different tests. This would be the ideal solution to comment spam too.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

investorblogger — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:47:01 -0000

Andy,

Thanks for your comment! I did get it but as you suspected, I had to fish it out of the spam section. I was notified though.

Have no idea why it ended up there, but it gave an error that said somethinga bout your IP address being a problem.

I will comment soon on it!

Kenneth

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

investorblogger — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:47:01 -0000

Andy,

Thanks for your comment! I did get it but as you suspected, I had to fish it out of the spam section. I was notified though.

Have no idea why it ended up there, but it gave an error that said somethinga bout your IP address being a problem.

I will comment soon on it!

Kenneth

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

AndyBeard — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:42:59 -0000

I just changed it - I wanted to make sure it was syndicated with that spelling first ;)

It will be interesting to see how much traffic a front page for bankruptsy in google gets me for a few hours as well.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

AndyBeard — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:42:59 -0000

I just changed it - I wanted to make sure it was syndicated with that spelling first ;)

It will be interesting to see how much traffic a front page for bankruptsy in google gets me for a few hours as well.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Oh, and a heads up on the spelling of bankruptcy. Feel free to delete this comment. :)

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Oh, and a heads up on the spelling of bankruptcy. Feel free to delete this comment. :)

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

I'm only a tiny blogger, but I've had only one false positive, and no false negatives have ever made it through to my blog, in 575 comments.

I don't see why spammers would waste their time targeting blogs that they know to be armed with Akismet. I mean, from a spammers point of view, what would be the benefit? Akismet is close to batting 100 for me, so I think I'll stick with it until it bats a little more ordinarily.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

I'm only a tiny blogger, but I've had only one false positive, and no false negatives have ever made it through to my blog, in 575 comments.

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Les — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:13:04 -0000

I seem to have the problem where some comments end up in moderation (that is where your comment ended up Andy), others in Spam and still others get through.

The amount of pawn coming through at present is crazy and something is needed. I havn't tried a captcha yet, perhaps that would stop the robots, otherwise Akismet seems to be the only one that is 2.5 compatible at present. If anyone knows different please let me know.

cheers
les

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Les — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:13:04 -0000

I seem to have the problem where some comments end up in moderation (that is where your comment ended up Andy), others in Spam and still others get through.

cheers
les

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Jim — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:17:18 -0000

I have had some of the same problems with Akismet. A lot of spam every day that is caught, but then there is always a valid comment or two as well that I need to pull out. They actually originally had me in as a spammer until I contacted them to sort things out.

I feel that it is still a good system, and the best their is. However, I can definitely see where you are coming from ;)

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Jim — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:17:18 -0000

I feel that it is still a good system, and the best their is. However, I can definitely see where you are coming from ;)

Re: Declaring Akismet Bankruptcy

Biodun — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:53:58 -0000

Akismet isnâ€™t perfect, very slow response to active spammers on the same IP address.