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Akismet Whitelist?

  1. absurdoldbird
    Member

    Is there any way I can list websites that are okay so that they don't go into the spam filter? Something like a whitelist? A blogger (on wordpress.com) whose comments are always fine and who is a genuine blogger, always gets grabbed by Akismet in any of my blogs he comments, and I really don't understand why! He has two different blogs, and has tried commening from both and it happens nearly every time. (One of his blogs always gets put in the spam filter, the other does most of the time - more frequently in the last few days. And today, he even included my name in his comment!) So I have to remember to check the filter everyday to see if he commented, which really is crazy!

    I realise that Akismet is, otherwise, doing a very good job.

    I have my blogs spam filter set to 'don't delete old spam comments' or whatever it's called. And I use moderation on all my blogs. But of course, as his comments go into spam, I am never notified about them. I see there's a blacklist option, but there doesn't seem to be a whitelist - or am I missing something?

    Thanks.

    The blog I need help with is absurdoldbird.wordpress.com.

  2. thesacredpath
    Member

    Have the blogger contact akismet directly at http://akismet.com and use their contact form and give them all the details.

  3. absurdoldbird
    Member

    Oh, okay, thanks.
    :)

  4. knashermac2009
    Member

    This is an excellent idea. I too have regular bloggers who regularly get spammed. My contact form is un-useable for the same reason.

    Unfortunately I have contacted Akismet on 3 or 4 occasions about this and have not even had an acknowledgement. (nd yes - I have checked my spam folder for any messages from them :-)

    I hope you have better luck than I

  5. thesacredpath
    Member

    I've tagged this thread for staff attention and hopefully they can respond and give someone a nudge or something.

    In general if someone is getting caught in the spam filter, you de-spam them and akismet will learn and within a day or two should stop spamming them.

  6. josephscott
    Staff

    The suggestion by thesacredpath is correct. In general, here are the steps for investigating this:

    - check the history section on the comment, make sure it was really Akismet that marked the comment as spam

    - be sure to use the 'Not Spam' link, this sends info back to Akismet.com so that it can learn from the mistake

    - if this persists, then drop a note at akismet.com/contact/ with the details and we'll take a closer look

  7. absurdoldbird
    Member

    I have marked them, each time, with 'this is not spam' but it keeps happening.

  8. knashermac2009
    Member

    yep - me too. Done all that.

    My blog has had 435 "spam" but from memory only about 6 or 7 were actual spam. I have also found that Akismet is a very slow learner.

  9. thesacredpath
    Member

    @knashermac2009, I think you should seriously review those spams you said were NOT spam. Akismet is absolutely NOT that inaccurate. On the blogs I manage, it runs over 99% accurate. Spammers are now making their posts sound like legitimate comments, but you can typically tell when they are very general, and if you check the links to the username, you might find completely spammy sites loaded with ads and such.

    The absolute worst I've ever seen on a blog using akismet was a accuracy of 87%.

  10. knashermac2009
    Member

    Sorry tsp, but Akismet IS that inaccurate in my case. The 420 or so "false positives" were all from personal friends of mine. Nothing suspicious about the content - certainly never more than 1 link.

    I even had a Christmas blog which spammed ME on a couple of occasions!

    I have also been in correspondence with WP for some time (given up now) over the contact-form on my blog (now removed) which none of my users (including me) could use because the majority of the messages disappeared. WP finally found the messages in a spam queue (presumably theirs) - put there by Akismet. They suggested I contact Akismet (which I did a few weeks ago). Never got a reply.

    So, please believe me tsp - under some circumstances, Akismet is very much over zealous.

  11. thesacredpath
    Member

    Strange, I've just never seen that. I know that there are certain free email services that Akismet probably looks at with more scrutiny than others (gmail and yahoo come to mind) since they are used a lot by spammers.

  12. knashermac2009
    Member

    Yes tsp - I suggested to WP that it was gmail users that were particularly affected by this.

    Both I and several of my readers have several WP blogs and have used the WP-publicised "trick" of using the "+" option in the gmail user name. However, that doesn't explain (to me) why various innocent-looking comments should be spammed.

  13. knashermac2009
    Member

    Still no contact (or acknowledgement) from Akismet. Not a sausage.

    Oh - perhaps its gone into SPAM.........No - not there.

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