I didn’t get much comment spam the first year or so that the main Contra instance was on WordPress. (The LiveJournal instance is a mirror.) I moderate all comments from new commenters, and now that the daily comment spam rate has crept from three or four up past thirty or forty, I figured it was time to do something.
So yesterday morning I installed Akismet, a server-side comment-spam detection plug-in for WordPress that applies a Bayesian signature scheme to incoming comments, and bins the ones it considers spam. Installing it was effortless, and for personal blogs like mine it’s free. (For commercial entities the Akismet service is $60/year.) So far, in about thirty hours it’s identified 80 spammy comments, which remain in the bin so you can scan for false positives if you want. Everything Akismet has fingered so far has proven to be spam. However, I’ve gotten no genuine comments on my WordPress instance since installing it. If you posted (or tried and failed to post) a comment on my WordPress instance today or yesterday, let me know. If nothing is in fact interfering with legitimate comments, this thing is a godsend, and if I sound a little nervous, it’s only that it feels maybe a little too good to be true!
[UPDATE 12/10:] Well, four comments successfully posted, and nothing spammed that shouldn’t be (or not spammed that should have been) suggests that Akismet is a win and I should stop worrying.
A friend uses something similar and it works very well for him, so I hope this is working for you.
Jeff: I use Akismet for my blog and it works just fine. Sometimes there’s a false positive and I have to release it, but I’ve never seen a spam comment get through to the site itself.
Cheers, Julian
I can think of a few topics to comment about that would almost definitely generate a false positive, but they would be neither appropriate nor a fair test. š
-JRS
I’ve been using Akismet for a couple of years. I can recall only one false positive in all that time, and I’ve never had a spammy comment get through.
WordPress.com uses Akismet spam detection for comments on blogs hosted there (which include both Evans Avenue Exit and the Ralpha Dogs’ corporate blog). I don’t recall getting any false positives for spam on comments there; at most, it might kick a comment into the “moderate this” queue, but I get a notification when that happens so I can give it a manual yea or nay.
It appears that this post did not get mirrored to the LiveJournal instance. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I just wanted to point it out in case you did not realize it.
I deliberately didn’t post it there. I don’t want to confuse my LiveJournal readers, most of whom don’t read my main site here. (Akismet won’t help them with LJ comment spam, which is rare but does exist.) That said, some may (like me) have other blogs somewhere else, so it just might be useful to a few of them. I may post it there later today.
Let’s stress test this puppy: questionable language, an embedded URL.
Would you like some spotted dick?
Enter this Dead Pool</a, and if your candidate is the first to assume room temperature, you get dick!
There's no closing date, and as long as your entry was still alive when you submitted him, you're in. The proprietress, Ms. S. Weasel, reserves the right to reject any entries she hasn't heard of.
Akismet
Dec 9th, 2010 by Jeff Duntemann.
I didnāt get much comment spam the first year or so that the main Contra instance was on WordPress. (The LiveJournal instance is a mirror.) I moderate all comments from new commenters, and now that the daily comment spam rate has crept from three or four up past thirty or forty, I figured it was time to do something.
So yesterday morning I installed Akismet, a server-side comment-spam detection plug-in for WordPress that applies a Bayesian signature scheme to incoming comments, and bins the ones it considers spam. Installing it was effortless, and for personal blogs like mine itās free. (For commercial entities the Akismet service is $60/year.) So far, in about thirty hours itās identified 80 spammy comments, which remain in the bin so you can scan for false positives if you want. Everything Akismet has fingered so far has proven to be spam. However, Iāve gotten no genuine comments on my WordPress instance since installing it. If you posted (or tried and failed to post) a comment on my WordPress instance today or yesterday, let me know. If nothing is in fact interfering with legitimate comments, this thing is a godsend, and if I sound a little nervous, itās only that it feels maybe a little too good to be true!
[UPDATE 12/10:] Well, four comments successfully posted, and nothing spammed that shouldnāt be (or not spammed that should have been) suggests that Akismet is a win and I should stop worrying.
Posted in: Daybook.
Tagged: software Ā· spam
ā Odd Lots
8 Comments
Darrin Chandler
December 9, 2010 at 9:31 pm
A friend uses something similar and it works very well for him, so I hope this is working for you.
Reply
Julian M Bucknall
December 9, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Jeff: I use Akismet for my blog and it works just fine. Sometimes thereās a false positive and I have to release it, but Iāve never seen a spam comment get through to the site itself.
Cheers, Julian
Reply
Jim Strickland
December 9, 2010 at 11:46 pm
I can think of a few topics to comment about that would almost definitely generate a false positive, but they would be neither appropriate nor a fair test.
-JRS
Reply
Jim Mischel
December 10, 2010 at 8:55 am
Iāve been using Akismet for a couple of years. I can recall only one false positive in all that time, and Iāve never had a spammy comment get through.
Reply
Erbo
December 10, 2010 at 10:27 am
Wordpress.com uses Akismet spam detection for comments on blogs hosted there (which include both Evans Avenue Exit and the Ralpha Dogsā corporate blog). I donāt recall getting any false positives for spam on comments there; at most, it might kick a comment into the āmoderate thisā queue, but I get a notification when that happens so I can give it a manual yea or nay.
Reply
KD
December 10, 2010 at 2:39 pm
It appears that this post did not get mirrored to the LiveJournal instance. It doesnāt matter to me one way or the other. I just wanted to point it out in case you did not realize it.
Reply
Jeff Duntemann
December 10, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I deliberately didnāt post it there. I donāt want to confuse my LiveJournal readers, most of whom donāt read my main site here. (Akismet wonāt help them with LJ comment spam, which is rare but does exist.) That said, some may (like me) have other blogs somewhere else, so it just might be useful to a few of them. I may post it there later today.
Reply
Rich Rostrom
December 10, 2010 at 8:21 pm
(trying again with tag closed)
Letās stress test this puppy: questionable language, an embedded URL.
Would you like some spotted dick?
Enter this Dead Pool, and if your candidate is the first to assume room temperature, you get dick!
There’s no closing date, and as long as your entry was still alive when you submitted him, you’re in. The proprietress, Ms. S. Weasel, reserves the right to reject any entries she hasn’t heard of.
(trying again with tag closed and without copying the whole page)
Letās stress test this puppy: questionable language, an embedded URL.
Would you like some spotted dick?
Enter this Dead Pool, and if your candidate is the first to assume room temperature, you get dick!
Thereās no closing date, and as long as your entry was still alive when you submitted him, youāre in. The proprietress, Ms. S. Weasel, reserves the right to reject any entries she hasnāt heard of.