WordPress.com is an easy way to start blogging. Get a blog, check out our features, read the latest announcements, choose from great themes, or learn about the team behind it.
Need help? Check out our Support site, then
Hello,
I've been seeing a lot of comment spam get through the filter as of late, and I was wondering if there were any plans for image challenges and the like.
I love WordPress, and I thought I'd see what the future was for the already great spam filtering.
I'd like to know this too. Also, my own dang on blog is considering me a spammer. What's that about? I tried to leave a comment today I frequent but it wouldn't let me. I went to mine to see if it was just some fluke. I had to pull my own comment out of the spam box. What's that about?
Yesterday I wrote 2 comments on a blog I frequent (a wordpress blog) and I got an error message saying, "slow down you're commenting too fast." Well, sorry about that WP, I figured the program worked faster than I could type the second comment. My bad! What is with this?
You know the spam I get? It's about r*pe and in*c*st porn. It was one thing when I could just clean it from my spam box but now it's leaking through with like 10 links attached to it. My site is set for 1 link to be caught by moderation so how is this stuff getting through? I can deal with the Viagra crap but when the other stuff actually shows up on my blog I am not a happy camper. so, what gives?
Austin (in need of a quick solution)
If your own comments are being marked as spam it generally means that Akismet has been re-tweaked and is clamping down more. Go to Moderate Comments and un-spam your comments and within a short length of time you'll be able to comment frequently again. It's a common issue when spam has been getting through and then Akismet gets reset.
The time restriction is to prevent spammers from getting through. Wait a full minute and you should be fine to comment.
The spams that are getting through: are they live links or text links? Because if they're not formatted as live links then Akismet may not catch them.
You may want to do a search for Akismet here in the forums as teh topic has been discussed many times over. I've added the tag to this thread as well if you want to follow that.
Staff has stated and I agree that captchas don't work. There's too many ways to get around them and they cause too many problems for folks who have to use other browsers besides the main line ones. You can get around the math ones and "check the box" ones as well.
As to the speed issue, I could show you in my own server logs where I get hit by spam bots 200 or more times within just a few seconds. Those restrictions are there to prevent posting floods. Nearly every major system on the net has those protections. Gallery, phpBB, phpNuke, etc. Heck, these forums have them as well. (I hit them all the time in the wp.org forums) Last time I knew, you could do a comment every 20 seconds. That should be enough time for you to read a post and write out a comment for it.
Also remember that Akismet is not perfect. That's why it has a learning function. If something gets through, tag it as spam and send it in. You'll be doing the rest of us a favor.
Dear Moderator,
I so appreciate the support/I we're just WordPress we only work here and can't really help you attitude you've displayed. Thanks.
@sundripjourney
On a point of clarification drmike our Moderator and myself and everyone else who answers questions here on the support forums, except for those who have "keymaster" beneath their names, are all unpaid volunteers.
We all have blogs too that are also under constant attack by spam bots. So if you think you are the only blogger getting incest and rape and porn spam directed at your blog then, think again. Many of us remove pages of this kind of spam every day.
Luckily you can fish your own comments out of the spam filter and mark them not spam. By doing this Akismet will learn that you are not a spammer and none of your comments will be lost.
It's always recommended that comments on older posts be closed to prevent spam masquerading as comments from slipping in. As for incoming comments all of mine are moderated and that has saved my blog from being spammed many times over each day. I check out every incoming comment link before I post it to my blog.
This is how I look at it. If I had a guard dog like Akismet on duty protecting my livestock I'd have to feed the dog and give it proper vet care. I would also have to keep my gates closed and my fences in good repair. And I'd have to keep an eye on everyone coming and going through the gates. In other words the guard dog and I would become a protection team.
Keeping spam out of my blog is analogous to this. It means that Akismet has a job to do and so do I. Having the guard dog doesn't mean I can open all the gates and not bother to mend the fences.
Sun, sorry you don't like the answer I gave you but it doesn't change anything. Captchas don't work. I tried to explain that to you. I'm sorry you can't have your way. There are over 600k other bloggers here at wp.com and staff has to make the choices that's best for all of them, not just you. I for one hate blogs that have music autoloading yet staff went adain and made that option available. We can't always have what we want.
As to your comment directed towards me, maybe you should hang around and see all the good that I try to do around here. As TT states, I don't get paid for this. (and I've got to admit that that's quickly becoming an issue) I do this because I enjoy helping folks around here when I can. I look to it as a challenge. It's folks like you that make me really wish I had installed that copy of Drupal a year ago instead of pick up the wp.com invite someone sent me.
Personally I don't think what you care for me. I have a todo list over 200 items long and an inbox over 400 from folks who have asked for my assistance. I can't help everybody but I try to do what I can.
If you will excuse me, I have to write up a walkthru I promised folks awhile back in the WPMu forums before I go help a local church feed the homeless later tonight.
Bloodly hell...
Why are we getting all this hostility in the forums lately? Are all of these people new to the Internet and the practice of human relations? It's anomalous.
I'm got some hate mail from some guy today who didn't get his way months ago. Had to delete about a dozen of his posts here in the forums. He, of course, doesn't remember any of that and is wondering why I made an ass out of myself by leaving him a warning on his blog to cut out the harrassment here on the forums.
Getting rather tired of it. I could be spending my time working on the WPMu wiki that I promised him months ago. Or making some real money. I found out this afternoon that they cut my disability check $75 a month and I lost my half my Febuary check because I made too much last year.
Lots of fun.
And I would be the last person who stated that "I only work here" I'm sure staff is tired of the feedbacks that I send in with suggestions and links to here in the forums. You go how many tickets I entered into the WPMu trac.
Well at least you weren't here experiencing the troll last night. The one that claims to be salt light but then attacked rain. It was shameful. Barry closed the thread.
It was killing me not to rip him on the forums. Flamewars should be conducted in blog comments, as God intended.
I'm sorry to hear about your setbacks, Dr Mike. You work too hard, both here and elsewhere, and you shouldn't have worries like that.
@drmike
I echo that. I know how hard it is to live on a low income. And you always do a darn fine "free" job here. We all do. Would you please delete these off-topic posts. Tx
The very first comment I received after moving from Blogger to WordPress was from timethief... and it was marked as spam.
Hmmm.
She hasn't been back since.
And your point would be? There, I clicked on your blog lots. :)
I took it personally ;-)
I took it personally ;-)
Humour: I'm glad this last click fest was good for you
;-)
We have had an influx of new bloggers from Blogger and most have been super people. However, a few have been nasty about not being able to advertise so whenever I see an imported blog from Blogger with some product on a post followed by a price but no text reviewing the product I leave a "heads-up" no advertising comment. The blogger is of course free to mark it as spam.
We have even experienced those who thought buying a domain would change the "no advertising" rules for them but it doesn't. The blog host is still wordpress.com and the same rules still apply.
I'm not a new comer, the problem I had with the response was that it seemed rather harsh. No, I don't think I'm the only person getting that kind of spam, what bothers me is that now it's getting through so I asked what gives. Then I couldn't comment and yeah, that pissed me off. Suddenly I found my comments in a class with people that spam. that to me is offensive but no, I didn't think WordPress was targeting me for anything or even spammer targeting me and leaving other bloggers alone. I did not take the spam personally. I never said that in my original forum post either.
Perhaps the touchiness is actually on both our sides here. One, I maybe could have used a little less sarcasm in my original post and skipped the second reply all together. Two, yall could have not been so ready to think I was taking this all so personally and read into my comment what wasn't there. Why would a spammer target me and not others? That wasn't my point at all. Again, perhaps I came off harshly at first, which was not my intension but I truly expected a better response from someone working with or for WordPress. Even a volunteer can give an answer that doesn't sound like an attack. As far as me being a newbie or from blogspot, now that's just down right offensive simply because it gives a person an excuse to pass off legit concerns as irrational and gives them an excuse to flame while doing it. That's all I have to say about the matter.
Austin of Sundrip Journals (a generally reasonable person and blogger)
@sundrip
(1) No one said anything at all about you coming from blogspot and no one has flamed you. Moreover, the fact that you are suggesting these things have happened when they did not happen is utterly unacceptable.
(2) The point is that we are all getting spammed every day. You complained and Our Moderator as well as another blogger told you what to do about the spam. That should have been the end of the story, however, you felt compelled to deliver a nasty snipe. I chose to respond to you as well and I did so in a polite and conversational manner in spite of your snipe.
(3) Perhaps from now on you'd like to drop in a direct comment to Akismet. This can be done here http://akismet.com/contact/
(4) And if you don't appreciate the answers you get on the forum from our Moderator and from your fellow bloggers then please be aware that you do have an alternative. You can send your feedback directly to staff using the blue button on the top right hand corner of any blog page.
Not connected to the main topic, but I haven't had spam for a day or so (usually it is hundreds for that time).
Anybody else experiences this weird thing?
BTW, I'm not eager to see spam, but this is just weird :)
Yes, I'm experiencing a vast slowdown in spam. I'd normally have ten or fifteen pages worth to delete, and I've only had about twenty spams altogether.
It's quiet. Too quiet.
I'm often asked if people could turn off Akismet.
I don't think some people realise just how bad an idea that actually is.
Maybe you should turn it off for them for a day. :)
Either that or point them to the counter on my blog and remind them that that count was for a total of 11 days before I made it into accounts only can comment. :)
Hello,
My problem is that Akismet doesn't leave me anything to inspect; every day it says another 10 or 20 or so messages have been detected as spam, and they are gone. Now people are telling me they left comments, and they never show up.
I want to see the spam before Akismet deletes it. How can I accomplish this?
Thanks for your help.
Right now, all you can do is send in a feedback requesting a Review All Spam option. WordPress had that before, so re-enabling it shouldn't be an incredible headache for them.
The reason you're getting the count up but not seeing any spam in the file is that Akismet is now automatically deleting anything it thinks is spam on any post 30 or more days old. The problem, of course, is that we're left wondering how many legitimate comments have been deleted. I have several very active posts older than that and I can't see what's getting posted on them. Sure, maybe I have only 1% false positives, but that's still 20 comments or so into the bin.
Dragonpoet, this is the third thread to which you posted the same comment, and you posted to the other two AFTER I had answered your question.
Don't. Do. That.
If you're that desperate to find the answer, rather than spamming the forum like that, use the Search box at the top of the forum to see if the question has come up before. You'd have found several threads on the subject with the answer.
dragonpoet, please stop spamming the forums. It's unacceptable and there's no need for it.
This topic has been closed to new replies.
sundripjournals
timethief
geckorock
tgjorgoski
mark
dragonpoet