Comments on: Akismet et al erroneously flagging trackbacks from Hmm as SPAM, not HAM http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/ Technology, music, video, art, news, reviews and muse on the web Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:04:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: darkmoon http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-512343 darkmoon Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:23:06 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-512343 You have to put in a request at the Akismet website. It's usually taken care of, but sometimes you might have to put in two ticket requests. I have to say that the only thing I actually like about all of this? The fact that Matt is pretty responsive on correcting issues. You have to put in a request at the Akismet website. It’s usually taken care of, but sometimes you might have to put in two ticket requests. I have to say that the only thing I actually like about all of this? The fact that Matt is pretty responsive on correcting issues.

]]> By: Yan http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-511923 Yan Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:00:02 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-511923 Have you been able to fix this? I seem to have the same problem with Askimet flagging comments from my blog as spam. :-( Have you been able to fix this? I seem to have the same problem with Askimet flagging comments from my blog as spam. :-(

]]> By: TypePad support recommends using proxy to get around their own anti-spam filters » Make You Go Hmm http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-390108 TypePad support recommends using proxy to get around their own anti-spam filters » Make You Go Hmm Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:36:59 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-390108 [...] Unfortunately, Akismet still erroneously flags MakeYouGoHmm.com trackbacks as spam even after Matt stopped by here when I last complained in great detail about the problem. See Nathan’s comment here. I’m still happy to troubleshoot this issue with anybody from the Akismet team that wants to contact me directly. I don’t use Akismet here, but I’m happy to work though this if they actually give a damn. [...] […] Unfortunately, Akismet still erroneously flags MakeYouGoHmm.com trackbacks as spam even after Matt stopped by here when I last complained in great detail about the problem. See Nathan’s comment here. I’m still happy to troubleshoot this issue with anybody from the Akismet team that wants to contact me directly. I don’t use Akismet here, but I’m happy to work though this if they actually give a damn. […]

]]> By: TDavid http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-359812 TDavid Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:53:19 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-359812 According to logs, last time this happened was December 2005 and was this link, Pete: mashable.com/2005/12/06/kanoodle-to-pay-publishers-for-cookies-but-is-it-wise/ According to logs, last time this happened was December 2005 and was this link, Pete:
mashable.com/2005/12/06/kanoodle-to-pay-publishers-for-cookies-but-is-it-wise/

]]> By: Pete http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-359806 Pete Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:43:40 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-359806 Hey TDavid, You're right - never got any correspondence about the issue you mention. I assume it must be an old issue, though: Mashable hasn't sent any trackbacks since about 2005. Hey TDavid,

You’re right - never got any correspondence about the issue you mention. I assume it must be an old issue, though: Mashable hasn’t sent any trackbacks since about 2005.

]]> By: Timothy Appnel http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-359628 Timothy Appnel Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:15:07 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-359628 I suppose you could develop an uber spam protection mashup plugin with Akismet being one of its sources. That isn't the goal of this plugin though. The point of the Akismet plugin is to be transparent and simple to us. Unless an error message is appearing in your activity log it is reporting your feedback to the service. I suppose you could develop an uber spam protection mashup plugin with Akismet being one of its sources. That isn’t the goal of this plugin though. The point of the Akismet plugin is to be transparent and simple to us. Unless an error message is appearing in your activity log it is reporting your feedback to the service.

]]> By: darkmoon http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358797 darkmoon Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:56:21 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358797 Official has been loaded back in and the other one disabled for testing. Right off the bat, I can tell you that the official has only pretty much little to no control user control. No offense to you Timothy, just giving you the honest opinion from user end. The only thing as a user you can control is the weight of how your spam is managed, and there's no way to whitelist or run anything similar to phishtank type of voting. I had Movable Type Support apply a patch in my blog so now I have detailed logs so I can tell you what happens if it fails in MT itself. In any case, if tdavid's comments or trackbacks still are weighted incorrectly, there is no way to justify that. As a user, there is also no way for me to know if 1) when I change the status of a junked email (false positive) to a published, if Akismet is notified, 2) whether or not I actually want to send Akismet anything or use them as a db to check against, and 3) I still can't whitelist friends/family/good commenters/etc. I know that whitelisting is an issue in Akismet for WP also since I've had friends with WP blogs that have issues with trying to whitelist some of my comments for whatever reason (I use same login/email/everything for every blog). If anything, from MT side of things, I'd like to see more interface. From Akismet side, well... it's been mentioned above. Official has been loaded back in and the other one disabled for testing.

Right off the bat, I can tell you that the official has only pretty much little to no control user control. No offense to you Timothy, just giving you the honest opinion from user end. The only thing as a user you can control is the weight of how your spam is managed, and there’s no way to whitelist or run anything similar to phishtank type of voting. I had Movable Type Support apply a patch in my blog so now I have detailed logs so I can tell you what happens if it fails in MT itself.

In any case, if tdavid’s comments or trackbacks still are weighted incorrectly, there is no way to justify that. As a user, there is also no way for me to know if 1) when I change the status of a junked email (false positive) to a published, if Akismet is notified, 2) whether or not I actually want to send Akismet anything or use them as a db to check against, and 3) I still can’t whitelist friends/family/good commenters/etc.

I know that whitelisting is an issue in Akismet for WP also since I’ve had friends with WP blogs that have issues with trying to whitelist some of my comments for whatever reason (I use same login/email/everything for every blog).

If anything, from MT side of things, I’d like to see more interface. From Akismet side, well… it’s been mentioned above.

]]> By: Timothy Appnel http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358787 Timothy Appnel Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:41:11 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358787 I'm afraid your report didn't reach me where ever you submitted it. I don't work for Akismet so I can't answer for them here. I was just contracted to build that one plugin. In light of the problem I do know Stephan Riha's plugin was patched before mine however, as I noted before, his does not feedback any information to Akismet. To me the strength of Akismet is that collective feedback so not having that feature defeats the purpose of the whole system. As for support, I do fix bugs in my plugins when I know about them. ;) I am one person though and I'm not paid by Akismet to support the plugin so I can't promise too much. I’m afraid your report didn’t reach me where ever you submitted it. I don’t work for Akismet so I can’t answer for them here. I was just contracted to build that one plugin.

In light of the problem I do know Stephan Riha’s plugin was patched before mine however, as I noted before, his does not feedback any information to Akismet. To me the strength of Akismet is that collective feedback so not having that feature defeats the purpose of the whole system.

As for support, I do fix bugs in my plugins when I know about them. ;) I am one person though and I’m not paid by Akismet to support the plugin so I can’t promise too much.

]]> By: darkmoon http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358782 darkmoon Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:31:27 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358782 Actually, I actually did contact Akismet for official help through contact list for the "official" Akismet for MT when I upgraded to MT 3.3 when it came out. I got zero response after two contacts, and figured no one cared to fix my spam plugin that was now broken. So I moved to the one Stepan Riha which was actually patched for MT 3.3. This was after a week of waiting and I was filtering spam by hand. Is Akismet for MT (official) going to be supported? Because if I have to fight the above again during another upgrade, then it's not worth messing with. Actually, I actually did contact Akismet for official help through contact list for the “official” Akismet for MT when I upgraded to MT 3.3 when it came out. I got zero response after two contacts, and figured no one cared to fix my spam plugin that was now broken. So I moved to the one Stepan Riha which was actually patched for MT 3.3. This was after a week of waiting and I was filtering spam by hand.

Is Akismet for MT (official) going to be supported? Because if I have to fight the above again during another upgrade, then it’s not worth messing with.

]]> By: Timothy Appnel http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358779 Timothy Appnel Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:17:49 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061207/4024/#comment-358779 Just a couple of quick things. I wrote and still maintain the "official" MT Akismet plugin when I have time for it. I noticed the Movable Type Akismet plugin you featured isn't the one I authored. The one pictured in the screenshots does not feedback anything to Akismet. It's a one way stream of communication. I've been contacted by a couple of people, erroneously thinking they were using my plugin, to complain about it not handling spam like you have. Once they switched to my plugin and started to Junk (which does feedback information to Akismet) some of the spam they were getting the situation improved dramatically. I won't guarantee this will be your experience, but I ask that you try using my plugin and providing some feedback to Akismet (by correcting errors with the Junk/Not Junk options) and see if its accuracy improves for you like it did the others. Based on my experience developing and helping users with the plugin (the actual Akismet engine is a blackbox to me) I've come to the conclusion that WP and MT blogs get hit with different types of spam. Since Akismet is built into WP a lot of the feedback Akismet gets is from WP spam. If MT-Akismet users aren't feeding back information the system's effectiveness is not as good. Lastly, there was a bug with MT 3.3 and trackbacks. That has been fixed in the current release, version 1.1. I apologize that the issue wasn't corrected sooner, but news of the bug didn't reach me till some months later. Hope that helps. Just a couple of quick things.

I wrote and still maintain the “official” MT Akismet plugin when I have time for it. I noticed the Movable Type Akismet plugin you featured isn’t the one I authored. The one pictured in the screenshots does not feedback anything to Akismet. It’s a one way stream of communication.

I’ve been contacted by a couple of people, erroneously thinking they were using my plugin, to complain about it not handling spam like you have. Once they switched to my plugin and started to Junk (which does feedback information to Akismet) some of the spam they were getting the situation improved dramatically. I won’t guarantee this will be your experience, but I ask that you try using my plugin and providing some feedback to Akismet (by correcting errors with the Junk/Not Junk options) and see if its accuracy improves for you like it did the others.

Based on my experience developing and helping users with the plugin (the actual Akismet engine is a blackbox to me) I’ve come to the conclusion that WP and MT blogs get hit with different types of spam. Since Akismet is built into WP a lot of the feedback Akismet gets is from WP spam. If MT-Akismet users aren’t feeding back information the system’s effectiveness is not as good.

Lastly, there was a bug with MT 3.3 and trackbacks. That has been fixed in the current release, version 1.1. I apologize that the issue wasn’t corrected sooner, but news of the bug didn’t reach me till some months later.

Hope that helps.

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