Comments on: TypePad support recommends using proxy to get around their own anti-spam filters http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061229/4087/ Technology, music, video, art, news, reviews and muse on the web Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:50:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: TDavid http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061229/4087/#comment-377282 TDavid Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:16:29 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061229/4087/#comment-377282 Matt - thanks for checking and reporting back. I will forward this post to Nathan (blognewschannel) and see if he's still having the same problem. Unless I missed this somewhere -- and my bad if that's the case -- you never invited me to email you directly about this problem. You did invite me to fill out a contact form on the Akismet site (which I declined), but that doesn't make any difference since I don't use Akismet on any of our hosted blogs and have no specific data that hasn't already been published here for you and the rest of the world to see. You might label this a "statistically improbable experience" and yet within the last 90 days I have had two different established bloggers using different blog software and Akismet (one using MT, the other using WP) complaining about the same thing: the trackbacks from this blog are being flagged as spam by Akismet. It's certainly possible that they are using something else in addition to Akismet that is causing problems. Unfortunately, I've heard this complaint at least a half dozen times from bloggers using Akismet. That might be statistically insignificant in the overall scheme of Akismet, but it's significant to this site considering the number of people who would not bother taking the time to tell us there was a problem. The numbers you are dealing with compared to ours are much greater, so I can understand and respect your perspective. However as a fellow software developer, a bug is a bug is a bug, no matter how infrequent it appears or unlikely it seems. The question which you raised -- and it's a good one -- is it Akismet or something else these bloggers are using? I can't answer that with the data being made available to me and thus cannot email you at this time. I do appreciate your invitation now. But here's what I can do: As soon as I hear this complaint again -- and of course I hope that is never -- I'll get as much data, with screenshots, from the blogger(s) and email it to you directly. Hopefully you are right and it's fixed now and that won't be necessary. At least I can put you in touch with the person using Akismet, since I'm just an affected third party. I invite you to watch the comments on this thread to see what Nathan has to say, if anything in the coming days. I've sent him other trackbacks since his last comment complaint about the issue on December 12 (three weeks ago roughly). Matt - thanks for checking and reporting back. I will forward this post to Nathan (blognewschannel) and see if he’s still having the same problem. Unless I missed this somewhere — and my bad if that’s the case — you never invited me to email you directly about this problem. You did invite me to fill out a contact form on the Akismet site (which I declined), but that doesn’t make any difference since I don’t use Akismet on any of our hosted blogs and have no specific data that hasn’t already been published here for you and the rest of the world to see.

You might label this a “statistically improbable experience” and yet within the last 90 days I have had two different established bloggers using different blog software and Akismet (one using MT, the other using WP) complaining about the same thing: the trackbacks from this blog are being flagged as spam by Akismet. It’s certainly possible that they are using something else in addition to Akismet that is causing problems.

Unfortunately, I’ve heard this complaint at least a half dozen times from bloggers using Akismet. That might be statistically insignificant in the overall scheme of Akismet, but it’s significant to this site considering the number of people who would not bother taking the time to tell us there was a problem. The numbers you are dealing with compared to ours are much greater, so I can understand and respect your perspective. However as a fellow software developer, a bug is a bug is a bug, no matter how infrequent it appears or unlikely it seems. The question which you raised — and it’s a good one — is it Akismet or something else these bloggers are using? I can’t answer that with the data being made available to me and thus cannot email you at this time. I do appreciate your invitation now.

But here’s what I can do:

As soon as I hear this complaint again — and of course I hope that is never — I’ll get as much data, with screenshots, from the blogger(s) and email it to you directly. Hopefully you are right and it’s fixed now and that won’t be necessary. At least I can put you in touch with the person using Akismet, since I’m just an affected third party. I invite you to watch the comments on this thread to see what Nathan has to say, if anything in the coming days. I’ve sent him other trackbacks since his last comment complaint about the issue on December 12 (three weeks ago roughly).

]]> By: Matt http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061229/4087/#comment-377245 Matt Mon, 01 Jan 2007 22:36:57 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061229/4087/#comment-377245 I ran the content from that TB through Akismet and it wasn't caught, so that means either it was caught by something outside of Akismet or that the system has learned and adapted to its mistake already without human intervention. (Which is what it's designed to do.) I invited you to email me last time you had trouble and that invitation is still open. I wouldn't want your statistically improbable experience to leave a lasting negative impression. I ran the content from that TB through Akismet and it wasn’t caught, so that means either it was caught by something outside of Akismet or that the system has learned and adapted to its mistake already without human intervention. (Which is what it’s designed to do.)

I invited you to email me last time you had trouble and that invitation is still open. I wouldn’t want your statistically improbable experience to leave a lasting negative impression.

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