Akismet, WordPress Anti-Spam Plugin, is Good
Akismet is WordPress hosted spam filter from Matt M.
I have been using it for about a week now. In this time I have seen 1-2 false positives and 2-3 false negatives. However considering the amount of spam I get, I think it does a pretty good job.
I have also thought of using Bad Behavior on top of it. However I don't think I need it at this time. My idea of spam protection is to do the job with the minimum inconvenience to the user.
I had installed it on the advice and insistence of James Huff (aka MacManx. Thanks James.
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April 7th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I hope that you enjoy using Akismet! It truly is a great anti-spam plugin. And, since Akismet’s accuracy grows with its user base, the best is yet to come!
April 8th, 2006 at 12:00 am
How does it grow? Is it using Neural Net or GA?
April 8th, 2006 at 12:49 am
Well, the theory is that, with more users, there will be more false positives and false negatives submitted for evaluation.
Once you mark an “approved” comment as “spam”, or a “spam” comment as “not spam”, it is submitted to Akismet’s server, analyzed and evaluated by the Akismet engine, and used to improve its accuracy. It is by this principle function that most new comment spam waves are stopped within minutes by Akismet.
April 8th, 2006 at 11:24 am
I’m not sure how the evaluation is done. They constantly refer to it as the “secret sauce” of Akismet. I do know, however, that the process of analysis and evaluation used to be done manually by Matt when Akismet was in the testing stages, but that process has now been fully automated.
April 8th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
[...] I took a look at the data we are sending to Akismet, a WordPress plugin for comment spam protection, for each comment submitted on your blog, if you use this plugin for comment spam prevention. I have recently started using Akismet, a WordPress plugin from WordPress author Matt Mullenweg. I have to say I was surprised at the copious amount of data, some sensitive, being sent to Matt’s server for handling every single comment. [...]
April 25th, 2006 at 9:40 am
This plug in did not amaze me. It wrongly filtered a normal comment as spam.
April 28th, 2006 at 4:49 am
Leion,
That doesn’t surprise me. I too had several legitimate comments marked as spam. I am however still giving it some leeway in the hope it will improve.
April 30th, 2006 at 10:07 am
[...] I have been using Akismet plugin for about a month. One of the key deficiency of the plugin is occassional false positives (falsely flagging non-spam as spam) & false negatives (failing to identify spam). As a result I need to occassionally check Akismet Spam tab (under Manage) to identify any false positives. Spams / hams are very much context sensitive. Comments out of context are often a surefire indication of spam. What may sound like a reasonable comment in the Akismet tab may turn out to be a spam with proper context. For example the following comment may appear very reasonable (actual comment received on my Consanesco Blog) ie. ham: Good point. There are however a few other things many people should be aware of. Most know that cord blood banks collect, process, test and store the donated umbilical cord blood for the public use, taking into account the great number of people who are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases each year. Therefore, cord blood banks look after expectant mothers, informing them about the importance of their umbilical cord blood and the possibility of helping some people who suffer from terrible diseases. Nevertheless, the information and sensitizing of the population is not fully achieved as in the case of simple blood donation. Cord blood stem cell transplants are considered in order to replace blood marrow transplants. The possibility of finding the match for the patients in need increases, as in 2001 the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies stated that roughly 20,000 American lives were saved through transplants of stem cells. I’ve covered some other aspects related to this topic on my website, Cord blood hub - please let me know if you find them useful. [...]