Getting a very high volume of spam, what are you going to do about it?
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Hey, I’d like an answer on this. I’ve been hosting a blog on WordPress.com for years, and the number of spam comments has been rising steadily. I probably get a dozen a week, and it takes a real toll to have to moderate them.
Honestly, your anti-spam service completely sucks. Apparently it can’t tell that a user with the name “Short term life insurance sacramento” is suspect.
Something needs to change, and I’m sure I’m not alone with this problem. What can you tell me about it?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hello there,
Unfortunately, spammers troll the internet. The longer a site exists, and the more traffic it gets, the more it is spammed. Our Akismet filter is meant to keep that spam from appearing on your site, and confined to your spam folder. As the site administrator, ultimately you must decide what gets deleted.
Here’s how Akismet works:
http://akismet.com/how/I also want to make certain you’ve seen all our advice about how to combat unwanted comments:
en.support.wordpress.com/unwanted-comments/If I can answer any other questions, please do let me know. Thanks so much.
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Thanks, I’ve read that material. If a poster’s name is “sacramento collision insurance” and it’s not being caught by your spam filter, you should seriously consider if you’re using an effective spam filtering service.
This is becoming a serious problem for me, and I can’t say I’m thrilled to hear you say that there’s nothing to be done. I also find it rather hard to believe.
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Hi there,
Are you saying that “sacramento collision insurance” is getting through the Spam filter and is ending up published on your site? If so, then indeed, that is a real problem that should be looked into immediately.
However, if the Spam is ending up in your Spam folder, that’s where it’s meant to get “stuck” rather than publish on your page. That means that the Spam filter is actually doing an effective job. We absolutely do not want spammers to be able to publish to your site.
If you find they are able to publish, let me know asap, and we can help. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks very much.
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What I’m saying is that, currently, I receive post notifications and have to manually identify 10-15 spam comments per week and rising, so it’s not clear to me what protection I’m receiving. I get posts from users with names like “sacramento collision insurance”, and I should never have to look at a post like that – that is the entire point of a spam filter, no? It should not reach the moderation stage.
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Hi again!
Lots of questions for you:
When you receive spam, such as the one from “sacramento collision insurance,” does that comment end up in your Pending box? Or your Spam box?
If it ends up in your Pending box, do you mark it as Spam, rather than delete it? It’s important to Spam the comment, so you can “teach” Akismet to place the Spam from that sender into the correct folder.
Are you blacklisting spammers, so their comments automatically end up in your Spam folder? If you do this, these spammers should not have any comments held for you moderation. If this feature isn’t working properly, please let me know.
Do you have other repeat spammers who you’d like us to look into? If so, please send names, or links to spam comments.
I get posts from users with names like “sacramento collision insurance”, and I should never have to look at a post like that – that is the entire point of a spam filter, no?
The point of a spam filter is that spam comments to not end up published on your website. They SHOULD go to your spam folder. If they do not, you should mark them as spam, so in the future they do go to the spam folder, rather than to your Pending moderation folder. If they end up in the spam folder, they will be deleted eventually automatically. You do not have to read through them.
Looking forward to hearing your responses to my questions above. Many thanks.
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Honestly I do not understand why this conversation is proceeding in this fashion, and it’s striking me as really off.
Let me repeat what I said in my initial email – 10 to 15 times a week I receive email notifications about comments that are identical to the email notifications that I receive for valid comments, but when I look at them I see they’re from people with user names like “where to buy metabolic fat factor” (actual name of one I’ve received right now).
Are you seriously confused why I should not have to personally moderate spam comments of that kind so many times a week? I should not have to frequently make manual determinations with respect to whether or not a post is spam – that is the point of a “spam filter.” As I’ve said.
This is pretty tiresome. I’m not sure I even know what you mean by “going to my spam box.” What “spam box?” They show up on my “recent activity,” they appear in my dashboard notifications, and I receive email notifications with no indication that they’re anything other than a valid comment, and I have to trash them myself. Yes, I mark them as spam, and it does not make any appreciable difference.
What I’m taking away from this thread is that you either don’t understand the problem I’m describing at some length or you’re intentionally missing the fairly obvious point – your spam prevention service is not functioning effectively, and as a result I’m receiving a large volume of comments that I have to spam. As I said in my first post.
Since my question was “What are you going to do about it?” I can only gather that the answer is “Nothing.” I would have preferred for you to simply say that, because I kind of feel you’re playing games here.
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To put it another way, if I have to tell you for each comment “this is spam” or “this is not spam,” this is exactly equivalent to having no spam filter whatsoever.
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Hi there,
I do not blame you for being frustrated at all. Spam is annoying and it wastes your time. Let me see if I can break down your questions below and explain things in a way that sheds some light on the subject:
To put it another way, if I have to tell you for each comment “this is spam” or “this is not spam,” this is exactly equivalent to having no spam filter whatsoever.
If Akismet were a secretary at a desk deciding what was junk mail, and what wasn’t, I’d agree with you 100%. In that situation, a human being can be subjective about the decision to toss unwanted mail or not. Your assistant would also probably be able to tell by the sender’s name, the type of envelope, and his/her experience working with you whether or not you’d want to read the mail.
In this situation, the Akismet technology is 100% objective. Until the boss (you) tells it what to keep and what to toss, it can only make decisions based on some basic rules programmed by its developers. You do have to train it. It is the job of Akismet to retain that training. That’s what makes it a more advanced technology than something that throws away mail based on a programmer’s view of what is spam, rather than each individual user.
10 to 15 times a week I receive email notifications about comments that are identical to the email notifications that I receive for valid comments, but when I look at them I see they’re from people with user names like “where to buy metabolic fat factor” (actual name of one I’ve received right now).
Once you have classified a sender/comment as spam, you should NOT be receiving email notifications that this spam is in your inbox. Next time this happens, please take a screenshot of the spam comment in your moderation queue, as well as the email notification, and we will address that issue for you specifically. Please also let us know if you remember when you originally marked that commenter as spam. We don’t want you receiving email notice of spam you’ve already labeled.
You can simply upload the screenshot to your Media Library, like any other image, and I’ll be able to access it from there. Just let me know when there’s something to look at.
The page at the following link has some helpful tips for taking screenshots:
I’m not sure I even know what you mean by “going to my spam box.” What “spam box?”
Here’s an image that displays your Spam filter/inbox:
https://cloudup.com/camaSk1RPjLThey show up on my “recent activity,” they appear in my dashboard notifications, and I receive email notifications with no indication that they’re anything other than a valid comment, and I have to trash them myself.
Like I said, we do not want you receiving email notification about notes you’ve already marked as Spam. One thing that is very important is that you do not delete these comments. You must mark them as spam. When you simply delete them, it doesn’t ring any alarm bells for Akismet. Once you do mark a comment as Spam, you should stop seeing the repetition in your inbox.
Since my question was “What are you going to do about it?” I can only gather that the answer is “Nothing.” I would have preferred for you to simply say that, because I kind of feel you’re playing games here.
Sorry if I’ve given you that impression. The opposite is true. Part of what I need to do to help you, however, is teach you how to use the tools we offer. Akismet doesn’t work straight out of the box — it is meant to work specifically for you. I cannot teach it the proper behavior, as I’m not the owner of your blog, but I can certainly help you troubleshoot the issue.
I think one of the other problems of communication we’re having is how a spam filter is meant to work. An analogy that might help is your email inbox:
- You may receive some junk that goes straight into your Spam/Junk folder. The same happens with Aksimet.
- You may also receive some junk that goes into your inbox. If you delete it, rather than mark it as spam, your email’s spam filter will not know to put it into your Spam/Junk folder. Once you mark it as spam, it is moved to that folder.
- When your email system learns what is junk, that email isn’t deleted, it is filtered into your Spam/Junk box so you can go through it and delete it at will.
I hope this clears up a bit more about Akismet and how a spam filter is meant to work.
I don’t want you bothered with email notifications about comments you don’t want. My instruction about should help alleviate that situation. Also, please follow up with me once you mark comments as spam — if they reappear in your queue/email notifications, this is something we can look into fixing for you.
I look forward to hearing from you. If I can answer any other questions, please let me know. Best to you.
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