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 – 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.

Whilst it might appear that there was an increase of votes this time around, with 29 votes instead of 24, that doesn’t allow for the fact that 8 votes were added as a bonus. Thus there were only 21 fresh votes.

Again at least there were no rigged votes.

Here is the voting:-

The clear winner was Dofollow

I will be continuing the practice of carrying forward half the value of votes through to the next round.

I am looking for more nominations for Best WordPress Plugin, and hopefully next time round we will see more voting.

Proof of $100 Donation:-

Amount: $100.00 USD
Transaction ID: 81Y43496U4479182L
Subject: Donation For Top WordPress Plugins - Dofollow (April 2007)
Message:
This is a donation for Dofollow, which was both nominated
by my readers and subsequently voted for by my readers
as a Top WordPress Plugin.

I have more reviews to do, so there will definitely be at least one donation being made this month, possibly two if I get a couple more reviews.

While Matt focuses on the negative side of paid posts, I like to focus on the positive side, writing quality content that adds real value for my readers, and then donating the proceeds to WordPress plugin authors.
I wonder what percentage of WordPress theme and plugin authors sell links from their website, and how that compares to the amount of money they earn from donations?
When Robert Scoble announced that he was no longer going to speak at PostieCon, it gained a number of blog reactions, and even Michael Arrington from Techcrunch found time to leave a comment.

It is a shame simple solutions to disclosure which is the real issue with paid reviews don’t get coverage, such as adding a disclosure feed flare or my Disclosure Policy Plugin.

I have checked the ballots and there doesn’t seem to be any scandals – rigged voting would have been news worthy and actually profitable, it just goes to show how honest people in the WordPress community are.

Here is the voting:-

I don’t want anyone to feel that a vote is being wasted, thus for the next round I will be carrying forward half the value of previous votes rounded up, thus those that receive some votes in previous rounds will have a slight head-start in the next round of voting.

I am looking for more nominations for Best WordPress Plugin, and hopefully next time round we will see more voting.

Proof of $100 Donation:-

Payment Details
Transaction ID:		8L9571889R560693X
Item Price:		$100.00 USD
Total:			$100.00 USD
Order Description:	Donation to UTW as voted on by my readers
Buyer:			Keedz Limited

I have read that tagging functionality is being brought into the core of WordPress, and UTW might evolve into a way of expressing that data.
Christine Davis has worked hard with UTW, and I was actually glad I could give some recognition for all the hard work she has done in providing tagging support to WordPress in such a comprehensive manner.

Hopefully the next round of voting will gain a little more publicity, and that I gain a few more product reviews so I can make more donations to more plugin authors.

I am going to finish with a quote from my “almost namesake”, Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim

If you want something picked apart, Andy Beard is your man.

Donations are going to be made (if possible) in large chunks of $100

[poll=1]

Voting will be open until sometime during the morning of Friday 6th April (EST) – hopefully that will give the winner some nice additional beer money for the weekend.

Earnings to date for paid reviews: $30 + $75 + $98 = $203

That means the first giveaway will be for $100 this Friday

I decided to try using the WP-Polls plugin to run these polls for a number of reasons.

• WordPress Plugin Authors like their plugins being used
• It has lots of powerful configuration options
• It will add more relevant content to my site
• It doesn’t pull information from a 3rd party server, potentially slowing down loading

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?

Dr Dave has just released a new version

New in 2.3 of Spam Karma:

These are the full release details from inside the console, much more than is available on the blog. (for those that don’t have Spam Karma Installed currently)

New in 2.3:

* Miscellaneous bug-fixes (UI, WP21 compatibility, compatibility with other plugins etc.)
* A few small changes in the modules (improving blacklisting module, disabling RBL for now).
* Important updates to WordPress DB schema in order to try and improve its sluggish loading time (not directly an SK2 problem per se, but had to be done for SK2 to run fine).

Sorry this update took so long to come: basically SK2.2 worked well-enough for everybody and I am of the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of development…
However, lately, a couple issues with WP prompted me to finally push a release out. More details on these changes for the technically-inclined will certainly follow on my blog.

A couple things in the meantime:

* While the amount of code changed isn’t very big, I highly recommend installing this update: it should dramatically improve both WP and (therefore) SK2′s CPU performances.
* Once you’ve copied all the files over the previous install of SK2, make sure you browse to the ‘Manage SK2′ page at least once so it can run the auto-update script.
* From now on, use this online form to contact me for any SK2-related issue (all previous support email addresses will be discontinued soon).
* Due to one really nasty bug in Apple Mail (no mistake on my end, I sweat), all the mails in my inbox for the past couple months have been deleted. If you contacted me in the past and I haven’t replied yet, please send again (using this comment form). Sorry about that.
* The Documentation Wiki has been offline for a while now: I had to disable it, as spam(how ironic, I know) simply wasn’t manageable and Mediawiki dearly lacks proper tools to deal with it. I am planning to run SK2′s documentation on a basic WP install instead, but will still need to do the import from the old wiki manually (volunteers anyone?).
* Despite insistant rumors (and low release frequency, I must admit), I am NOT discontinuing SK2 development in any way in the near future (full story here).
* Brian ‘ColdForged’ Dupuis has been working on a very cool SK2 plugin using mod_security. I need to check up with him, but the customized version I am running here is doing wonders, reducing server load by weeding out repeat offenders at the server level. BTW, any volunteer do work on a version using ip_deny instead of mod_security ? I swear it’s very little work…

Spam Karma is extremely low maintenance on niche blogs because if a legitimate comment does happen to trip the system, it is unlikely to have as many penalties associated with it as automated spam. You can set your email report function to notify you of potential good comments to a high frequency and a flexible value (I use 8 hour reporting and Skip spam with karma under -20)

I have some sites running on WordPress that receive a good 100 spam messages per day, and possibly 2 real comments a week, and I only log into them if the comments require a response.

Spam Karma is that good!

Spam Karma is among the currently 5 plugins nominated for my first round of donations to WordPress plugin developers from my income writing paid reviews. I will be opening voting on the first of next month, so if you want to nominate a plugin, this is your last chance.