As is well known I am not a huge fan of collective intelligence as the sole arbiter of whether a comment is “spam or ham”, and long term I am most likely to switch back to Spam Karma, possibly using Typepad Antispam as an additional filter.

I am also going to grab the code from Igor so I can test Typepad Antispam in conjunction with his Project Honeypot though I think that too is best served as a Spam Karma filter/plugin with probably a high threshold.

Typepad Antispam was quite easy to set up

Grab A Typepad Key

If you have been blogging for a while and commenting on Typepad blogs, you most likely already have a Typekey account, you might just have forgotten the password ;)

Install Plugin And Add Key

Upload and activate the plugin, then add your key.

Auntie… Help!

The biggest immediate problem is that Akismet Auntie Spam doesn’t work with Typepad Spam. Hopefully that is something we can persuade Engtech to fix :)

The second problem is that I have already had at least one clearly automated porn spam hit me for moderation. With Spam Karma, automated spam doesn’t have a chance. It wasn’t a borderline case, it had tons of porn keywords and links in it.

I have used the dedicated plugin they provide, but apparently the guys at Techcrunch just modified 3 lines in Akismet to get it to work. That would immediately solve the Auntie Spam issue, and is something I will look into on a temporary basis.

It also suggests that a Spam Karma plugin will be a trivial task to get working.

Akismet

I am going to have to come up with an alternative way to comment

The false positive percentage in my personal experience must be the wrong side of 50% in recent weeks for comments, especially on blogs where I haven’t commented before, and I have a feeling it is probably the same for pingbacks, though it is something that is much harder to track (I would have to write 10 blog posts every day)

Akismet – Proof of False Positives

Just today a reader using Akismet posted about me being a comment spammer. He was joking, but it was because Akismet had flagged one of my comments as spam.

• It was a brand new blog
• That was my second comment posted on the blog
• The first comment I posted was not flagged as spam

A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

7 Months Of Historical Data

• Most of my readers know I live in Poland, so that could factor into any Akismet calculations. I also use an internet service provider that uses a variable IP address.
• Most of the comments I have made on 100s of blogs over the last 7 months have been to this domain. A few have included my other public sites for wordpress plugins or google toolbar buttons.

With that amount of historical data I should be able to post a comment about any subject I like, and Akismet should give me the benefit of the doubt

Akismet

Whenever someone writes a list of plugins featuring Akismet at the top of the list, the blog spammers rejoice.

Blog spam is about eyeballs on their links, even if it is only in an admin panel.

Spammers even target things like referral stats for traffic, making you think someone has linked to your domain to go and check, and for old sites that still have top referrers.

Every time a blogger has to go trawling through their spam folders to check for legitimate comments, the spammers get eyeballs on their links, and with the primary content of spam being the most popular content and products on the internet, their market is not just the links from dead blogs, but also the eyeballs of active bloggers, many of whom are young males, who spend far too much time in dark rooms lit only by the glare from their computers.

Akismet will never succeed in killing comment spam until it totally removes the need of eyeballs on all those links.
It is a noble cause, and I am sure it will eventually be a successful one, but there seems to be something wrong with the collective intelligence, or certainly the “binary” spam/no spam black/white decision process, whereas Spam Karma offers lots of shades of grey.

How To Set Up Spam Karma

One of the biggest problems people face when they think about alternatives to Akismet for spam control is how complicated many of the alternatives are to configure.

I decided the best solution is to provide you with a crib sheet for Spam Karma, featuring the exact settings I use on my blogs.

These settings will result in some comments being flagged for moderation. Some spam will also get through, especially manual spam, and some trackback spam from splogs sending you legitimate trackbacks will also have to be moderated, at least initially.
Some of that could possibly be avoided with the plugins at the end of this article.

Those comments that do get flagged as potential spam end up at the top of the moderation queue highlighted in green, and as people comment more frequently on your blog, the chances of that happening to someone who is a regular is effectively zero.

If you want to add some extra layers of defense, Akismet can still be used as a plugin to Spam Karma, although this is an additional download.

Basic Spam Karma Configuration

Here is the exact basic configuration I use on my sites, some of which have been using Spam Karma for 2 years.

Download Spam Karma

Here is the basic configuration

Link to Full Size Image

With these settings I get nice emails every 8 hours for potential spam, those comments between 0 and -20 Karma – first time commenters with javascript switched off typically fall around -5
The first 2 or 3 trackbacks (with a link) from sploggers get through, and from then on they dig themselves into a grave never to appear again with the snowball effect, or I can totally blacklist them.

If you wish to also add some collective intelligence to the mix, then you can use the 3rd party developed Spam Karma Akismet Module

If you are using WP-Cache, it is advisable to also use this fix for Spam Karma with WP-Cache.

For Those That Insist On Using Akismet

Use the Antispam Collateral Condolences plugin from Mark Jaquith of B5 Media (announced a couple of days ago that he was joining). I can think of so many blogging network and business blog things that Mark’s talents could be put towards, and I might have to convince Aaron that he needs them ;)

Engtech’s Auntie Spam plugin for Greasemonkey which allows you to search through Akismet spam faster.

Alternative Plugins

Recently I have been hearing good things about using http:BL and the Simple Spam Filter
Some people swear by Bad Behaviour

I have seen lots of people test other combinations, but almost everyone I know who has an in-depth knowledge of plugins (independent of Automattic developers) and who has experience using Spam Karma ends up returning to it, possibly with the use of Akismet as an additional filter.

I was just reading Paul’s post on trackbacks as there seems to me some kind of meme floating around started by Steve Rubel that trackbacks are dead.

I smell FUD, because that probably ties in with the “Social Media Press Release” that is being promoted by Edelman as a solution for press releases (PR Web support trackbacks)

Trackbacks are very much alive for blogging platforms such as WordPress that actually pingback automatically without having to copy and paste some silly code that is supposedly to reduce the amount of trackback spam.

Trackbacks happen less on such blogging platforms – I have heard recently that Typepad only seems to be working to trackback other Typepad blogs – that is just sad.

Blogging without trackbacks is insular blogging

Anyway Paul mentioned receiving…

1000 Spams Per Day

Here are my stats for Spam Karma which I wrote about the other day

* Total Spam Caught: 9800 (average karma: -1056.58)
* Total Comments Approved: 1029 (average karma: 9.94)
* Total Comments Moderated: 419
* Current Version: 2.3 rc1

That is over 5 months

• I started this blog Oct 17th 2006
• I have been running DoFollow to remove nofollow from trackbacks and comments from the day I launched.
• I have been running Spam Karma since day one
• This blog is higher traffic (at least by Alexa)
• I have more toolbar pagerank
• I cover slightly different topics, but there is a lot of overlap

Paul’s domain is older by a fair amount but that doesn’t explain

15 times as much spam

What do you think?

Akismet is a very smart and effective system for controlling comment spam on blogs, and I know thousands of bloggers swear by it, listing it as their number one plugin for their blogging platform.

Increasingly I have started having problems posting comments on popular blogs such as Problogger. Initially it was when I included a link to a relevant post, which is within Darren’s comment policy. Recently I have had comments that didn’t include a link enter the moderation queue on new posts. Maybe I am going to have to start commenting without entering an optional URL (I know that affects Spam Karma)
It is well known among those that visit Darrens blog on a regular basis that Automattic use Problogger as a yardstick – the site attracts a great deal of spam.

Collective Intelligence

No one outside Automattic know the inner workings of Akismet, but it is known that it collects data from all the blogs using the service, and uses an algorithm to determine if a comment is spam. Such a system can be very effective. If someone spams one blog, they in some way get a black flag on all blogs, although how much weighting is transferred from one blog to another is unknown.

Rogue Data

I know Matt Mullenweg wouldn’t flag criticism on his blog as spam, but that might not be the case of every blogger. The same could be true for trackbacks – instead of just deleting a trackback that was in some way critical, or from a competitor joining in the conversation, it would be easy to flag it as spam.

The Danger of Collective Intelligence

Collective Intelligence isn’t just used for blog comment spam, it is also used for email spam. Every day I pull emails out of my spam folder in gmail. Some of it is highly important, such as data sent to me from this domain, contact form results, spam karma results etc. Often those reports contain “naughty” words – one day Gmail will learn that I really need this information.
I also pull lots of email from marketers out of the spam bin. If I have signed up for the mailing list, it shouldn’t be in the spam bin, even if I might not read it every time. If you don’t take this action, the email filters have no data to work with, or might take it that if you leave the comment in the spam bin, that it made a correct decision.

My Own Commenting

Whilst I am sure there are more active blog commenters than me, I am fairly active, and always try to add value. I am a repeat commenter on many blogs, and 95% appear without any problems, even on sites running Akismet.

Here are some things I have noticed:-

• Links in the Body – If you include a link in the body of a comment, you have a high risk of being flagged for the moderation queue. Even when the owner of the site has asked for a link to be posted, I avoid it.
• Optional Links – In your optional link to your site, that is actively encouraged, if you use it to link not to your root domain, but to highly relevant deep content, it has a higher chance of being flagged as spam.
• Long comments – If you make a longer comment, adding true value to the blog where you are posting it, you are more likely to be flagged as spam. I am not sure if that is because you have a higher chance of snagging a particular word filter, but I am less inclined to write long comments. I write lots of comments on blogs discussing monetization. I avoid using words such as money
• Constructive Criticism – I avoid linking / pinging blogs that are adverse to criticism, or don’t show trackbacks. If a trackback doesn’t show up, it suggests to me that there is a chance my trackback is remaining in the moderation queue, or even worse is being flagged as spam.

A blog which isn’t comment / trackback friendly for me becomes a “bad neighbourhood“, in much the same way as linking to a grey boxed website might damage your ranking in search engines, commenting on or linking with a trackback might damage your ability to comment on other sites.

Require Signups to Comment?

No matter how much you think this helps with spam, it deters constructive comments. I have declined commenting on 2 blogs today simply because they required me to sign up to their blog to place a comment.
I have just deleted the broken trackback from one of them after I wrote a long comment, only to discover after I hit submit that I needed to sign up to comment. I didn’t however flag it as spam as many would.

Liability and Reputation Management

Reputation management is often discussed – I frequently get comments from the owners of various products and services I review, whether the post was positive or negative. I always try to be constuctive in my opinions, and even when what I say is critical in some way, generally the time I have spent looking at something in depth is appreciated.

Due to collective intelligence, the actions of a rogue webmaster who flags critical comments and trackbacks as spam, could prevent legitimate commenters voicing their opinion on hundreds of other blogs. Who would ultimately be responsible, Akismet or the webmaster who flagged comments as spam that were just voicing a different opinion?
Who knows, maybe that is why I am having increasing difficulties posting comments on Problogger, and other high traffic blogs using Akismet. I am fairly certain that Darren has never flagged one of my comments as spam, and I have been leaving comments there for some time. Surely Akismet should have learned by now?

Spammers are actively working to improve their Akismet reputation by posting comments containing absolutely no links. If a comment gets approved or slips through, many comment systems would give a significant bonus for any future comments, they would no longer be a first time commenter.

GeoTargeting Blacklists

I am not sure if GeoTargeting is used in some way for blog spam blacklists. I really hope it isn’t. I am based in Poland, maybe that is having an increasing affect on my ability to post comments. Blogging is a global community.

Tips For Akismet Users

Many people who use Akismet as a way to control comment spam believe that it saves them a lot of time. In many cases that is true, but there are certainly an increasing number of posts I have read regarding false positives.

This post isn’t intended to deter people from using Akisment, but to be aware of the effects of collective intelligence and how they can help to improve it.

• Use delete – Don’t flag critical comments and trackbacks as spam – you could always leave them, or answer them in a constructive manner – the latter shows real class
• Monitor your spam frequently – don’t just assume everything Akismet catches is spam – not taking action could be harming your customers ability to give feedback
• Actively recover comments even if they are critical – you can always delete the comments afterwards – I don’t know if comments detected as spam and not recovered affect the collective intelligence, but having briefly looked at the Akismet WP plugin code, white flag signals are being sent.
• Upgrade Akismet – newer versions of Akismet plugins use different functions to check for spam, and sometimes remove functions that were determined to cause too many false positives.

The Automattic guys are constantly working on Akismet to improve it. They rely in part on the data you provide them, both flagging comments as spam, and recovering comments from the sin bin.

Maybe one day I will happily use Akismet, but currently I am uncomfortable by the amount of times my own comments end up in someone’s moderation queue, only to sometimes appear a few hours or days later when a good webmaster does some house keeping. It interrupts the flow of conversation.