Hello, I was waiting for you: please take a chair
So your comment was denied on a blog, and the perennial Spam Karma error message showed up, informing you it couldn’t be posted (provided the blog admin was a responsible admin and was keeping up with versions, you should have gotten the “updated” message, which isn’t so nasty any more: if you received some rather offensive piece basically accusing you of spamming, please accept all apologies and keep going).
Quite obviously, since you are reading this, you are not a spammer. You know it, I know it. You feel unjustly singled out, quite possibly frustrated, perhaps a bit angry and, if your mom didn’t hug you enough as a kid, you might even be inclined to overly aggressive and rude behaviour toward anything that ressembles a culprit for this problem. Please read on…
First, let me tell you who the real culprit is: it is not Spam Karma, nor Spam Karma’s developer (me), the blog admin, Santa Claus, Tim Berners-Lee or anybody else you are ever likely to talk to.
Please keep all your mental death rays for spammers. They are the only ones who deserve it.
Spammers, out of a mix of stupidity and greed, have so far managed to destroy entire parts of the Internet. While it is doubtful they’d ever kill blogging altogether, just go have a look at what happened to Usenet and what is currently going on with email. You should realize this is not an empty threat.
Spam Karma was born out of my personal frustration as a user facing the avalanche of spam and the endless succession of well-meaning, yet wholly insufficient, spam-fighting tools. As for many people, it came down to two options only: either find a proper way to automate spam fighting or close comments altogether. I think, seen from this angle, we can all agree that any solution, however imperfect, is better than nothing.
Yet, for anybody with more than a passing interest in the mechanisms behind SK, it should be fairly obvious that preventing unfair blocking of innocent users (“false positives” in technical terms) was one of my utmost priority. Of course, this probably won’t sound very convincing to those who got sent here by that dreaded “comment eaten” message…. Please allow me to make my case in more details below. If you are not interested by all this mumbo-jumbo, feel free to skip to the last section, where I give you a few tips on how to work around your current issue.
One essential point to keep in mind, is that all this is only fully pertinent for Spam Karma 1, which is most likely the version that sent you here. Spam Karma 2 works differently (read: even better). and quite likely wouldn’t have blocked you. More on that later.
Spam Karma, False Positives and accessibility
When I put together the rather complex collection of filters that makes SK, I purposefully ruled out many popular “anti-spam methods” precisely because of their unreasonable cost in terms of false positives. For example: methods requiring browsers to have Javascript support, or the user to view certain graphics (bad for blind net users) or to answer a riddle or something in a specific language (bad for users with a poor command of whatever language the instructions are given in). All these, as a standalone solution are widely used by anti-spam plugins, but generates more false positives than I consider acceptable.
There again, my philosophy is that “difficult” is better than nothing, and as such, I retained some of these filters that pose accessibility problems (such as Captchas), but only as “last resort” solution, i.e. if SK’s choice is between discarding a comment and presenting a Captcha, it will do the latter. Additionally, I tried to offer redundant options (such as auto-moderation by email as an alternate solution for commenters who can’t use Captcha)…
So, trust me, I went to extra lengths trying to make sure collateral damages would be kept to a strict minimum.
Then why did your comment get blocked?
Well, there are (were, to be exact, since once again SK2 addressed most of these issues) a few ways for a comment to be incorrectly identified as spam. Many actually. But here are the most common ones:
- User settings: SK gives the user full control on how tough it should approach potential spam. The documentation explicitly recommend to start lenient and crank it up if necessary. Unfortunately, some users do not read the manual (did I say “some”? sorry, meant not a single one of them bother reading it), others are so frustrated with their spam problem that they decide to go overboard, not fully realizing there are implications, or perhaps realizing, but considering it an acceptable trade-off.
- Misconfiguration: slightly different from the point above, in that, very often, the user fails to correctly install SK (it’s one of the easiest program to install, ever, but it’s quite easy to screw up things if one doesn’t even glance once at the doc), or, very often too, a particular server setup will turn up incompatible with SK. This kind of misconfiguration, in the hands of an uninformed blog admin, can result in a fully unusable comment form.
- Blacklist: most of the blacklist entries are automated, and it’s unlikely you’d end up there by mistake. However the user may have added certain words or IP that affect you. Another potential blacklist where your information (IP or URL) may have ended up, are Real Time Blacklist (RBL) servers. These servers (such as Spamcop or Spamhaus) are known to be quite aggressive in their blacklisting, and your IP could have ended up there for merely figuring on the same ISP network as a bad guy. SK is in no way affiliated with any of these RBL servers. It mostly offers offers the option to conjugate effort by consulting them as an extra check. If the blog admin decides to use them and your comment ends up moderated, the incriminated RBL maintainer is the one to go contact.
- Proxies: The number one cause for “real” false positives… Proxy servers do not agree with SK, SK doesn’t like proxies. This is deliberate: Most, if not all spammers use proxy servers to hide themselves when spreading their junk. Further more, it is also a very common trait of spammers to use “pools” of IPs to hit blogs, and thus optimize their operation. The problem breaks down to this: forcing SK to be nice to proxies (those that do IP masquerading, anyway) means relax the whole attitude toward IPs: not enforcing any form of consistency (e.g.: the same IP expected to fetch the comment form and submit it) and leaving the door open to a whole array of very basic dirty tricks that let spammer hide their tracks with much ease.
This trade-off was simply not acceptable. Although this is an option that can be disabled by blog admins (there again, the doc makes it clear that there are risks associated with keeping it on), I typically consider it too important a factor to leave it out of my own blog filtering configuration.
As you can see, all but the last one of the items above, are things I, as the developer of Spam Karma, have absolutely no control over.
Regarding proxy use limitations, the problem was duly addressed in SK2 by softening the penalty associated with it. Typically, comments are no longer discarded on the sole basis of a non-matching IP (i.e. behind a proxy) but simply rerouted to “stronger” verification process, such as Captcha or email auto-moderation. Not ideal, but not a showstopper by any means.
What can you do?
Many many things…
- Please keep your calm and, before all, remain courteous: sending me inflammatory emails is definitely not gonna impress me into helping your ass or doing anything about it. You’d have to do quite a lot anyway to beat the weekly dozen of borderline death threats I receive from people who have obviously as much grasp of modern technologies as I, of traditional Inuit craftsmanship. And if you think such a number has to prove I’m doing something wrong, please put it in perspective with the hundreds of enthusiastic props and thank-you letters I have gotten (especially considering people are more prompt to write when they are angry than when everything’s fine), and the many thousands people who are currently using SK…
I honestly feel bad for all those who contact me with polite assistance requests but I have no qualms clicking on the ‘delete’ button instantly whenever I spot a suspiciously high number of ALL CAPS or strong !?! punctuation inside a mail.
- Contact the blog admin! He is the one in position to help you, not me. Every single comment eaten by SK, is kept in a digest that is usually sent regularly to the admin. Chances are he’ll spot your comment and restore it himself. You may want to contact him to discuss that with him. And while doing so, ask him what are the exact reasons listed by SK for your blacklisting (this might help you solve your issue).
- When contacting the blog admin, you probably should recommend he upgrades his install to Spam Karma 2, which not only brings gazillions new useful features, but also addresses many of the shortcoming of SK 1.x. The only requirement for running version 2 of Spam Karma, is an up-to-date install of WordPress. SK2 has now been running on hundreds of blogs (including this one) for many months now, and gotten outstanding results in terms of false positives (hardly any at all, in fact).
- A silly but useful trick, when you just lost a long comment after submitting a form, is to immediately press the “back” arrow on your browser. On most system, this will bring you back to the comment form, such as it was when you submitted it. Do not attempt to post the comment again, it will likely only result in a stronger ban being set against you, unless the reason of your original ban has been figured meanwhile. However, feel free to make a copy and email it to the author or keep it for an attempt later, once the problem has been fixed.
- There exists one nearly infallible way to get your comments posted on a blog: register an account on this blog (it is usually open to anybody and doesn’t require anything else than basic log/pass type info). Such “accounts” exist on every Wordpress install and are there to help admins build community around their blogs (they can promote simple “visitor account” to actual editor levels etc).
Basically, SK considers registered members with a much keener eye than anybody else, and is likely to let you go through, even if, for example, you are accessing behind a proxy.
- Of course, and this goes particularly to the people who’ve sent me nasty messages so far: while I spend ridiculous amounts of time coding and supporting SK, I am not making any serious money out of it (but I have received many generous donations from satisfied users, that have all deeply touched me, if not helped paying for my many costly vices and addictions)… If you consider it a priority for blogs to be both easy to comment on and free of spam, it’s entirely up to you to help finance the effort. Then feel free to come back and berate me all you want on the shoddy work I have done with SK.
Yea, but what do you do about it?
Me?
You mean when I’m not spending my days doing free support for Spam Karma, foiling assassination attempts against my person, or checking on whatever new tricks the spamming monkeys are coming up with?
Well, I somehow managed to find it in me and in my schedule to do a massive rewriting of Spam Karma, it’s unoriginally called Spam Karma 2 or SK2, and it does all that SK1 did. Just better. I’ll refer you to SK2’s page for more info, but roughly, it practically never yields false positives any more… So it’s up to you to spread the word among bloggers, so that none of those pesky obsolete SK1 remains behind and prevents your future commenting attempts…
I think this is roughly all there is to say about Spam Karma for now. Please feel free to consult the rest of the site: there’s lots of stuff (whether on SK or the uneventful life of a drunken foreigner living in Japan).
And if you have any question that is not covered in the above rant, feel contact me using the form on this site.
2005-04-15 at 5.09 pm
Thank you for pointing out the issues in the article. Just went back and read the original email from me to you, to make sure I had not boiled over, but no, I dont think I had. A master of reasonableness I guess – as is your article.
Tony
2005-04-15 at 6.54 pm
it is NOT up to ME to go around asking or telling any site admins what to do in regard to false positives generated by YOUR software, yeah maybe you get a lot of happy mail from people getting less or no spam that may not realize the number of genuine messages being deleted in the process. NO, it is your program that MIS-identified me as a “NASTY” spammer and MAL-accused me of wrongdoing when I merely tried to post a GENUINE message, and I expect YOU to straighten out they result. It it YOUR responsibility as a responsible author and individual, if indeed that is the case. I accept responsibility for what I do and do NOT appreciate and absolutely WILL NOT permit false allegations go unchallenged. YOU, by and throughn your program identifed and accused ME of being a “nasty spammer” now BACK IT UP and PROVE IT, IT.
2005-04-15 at 6.58 pm
Tony: No worries at all, and no hard feeling I hope. Definitely let me know if I can help in any way.
BC: thanks for illustrating my point. Go to hell.
2005-04-15 at 10.34 pm
I hate spamkarma…
2005-04-16 at 4.41 am
Heh – I just recommended SK to someone as I have nothing but praise for the code.
Damn fine work dr Dave !
2005-04-17 at 5.42 pm
I have just installed SK2 on my blog after having SK1 on it ever since I had WordPress installed. While my blog is not very big or has very many comments (most spamming is referral based, thank you RK!) the protection is very needed. SK2 is a major improvement over the original SK and all your hard work will not go unnoticed by major blog owners who use your tools and people who have even a remote clue how hard it actually is to design and create a tool such as SK.
I admit I did have some false positives with SK1, but those comments deserved it. One person tried turning his comment into a huge advertisement for his site (needless to say, I did not ‘fix’ this false positive as if it did get through, I would have deleted it). The person really wanted to post a real comment and changed his comment enough the second time around (he removed the URLs pointing to his site) that it got through and I kept it on my site. In another case it was odd that something did get marked as spam, I didn’t understand it but reversing it to fix the wrong was very simple. No harm done. People need to know that writing software to identify an infinite amount of different inputs to decide if its good or bad is extremely hard. Mistakes can and will be made but it is an accepted ‘problem’ if the second option was wading through thousands other comments to see if they are real or not.
Either way, great work. Ignore those who say otherwise.
2005-04-20 at 11.39 am
[comment regarding manual "spam" posted above, that I am about to send into oblivion]
Somebody sure has a sense of humor here… teehee…
For the record, manually posting spam, filling the captcha (there again manually) and glossing over the fact that you’ve fooled SK2, is so cute I would nearly cry.
For the record again, it takes me about 1.5 seconds to delete it and ban your IP forever (not only from this blog, but from all other SK2-equipped blogs who will get the RBL update I am sending back automatically). To be put against the, minimum 1 to 2 minutes it has to take you to manually post these spams…
That being said, go ahead… if we do the math, and assuming you spend your day non-stop spamming this blog manually (oops, except you can’t: your IP is blacklisted now…) it would still take me about 10 minutes to erase it all… If you’re gonna take that time, I can take that time
2005-04-26 at 11.19 am
First, thank you Dr Dave for all your good work on behalf of the WP community, I think SK rocks!
However, I’ve just had two false positives, both relevant comments by regular posters. I’ve had SK 2.0 pre-alpha 9 installed with WP 1.5.1-alpha since last Friday.
How do I tell which post the comment was made on, and the date, etc so I can manually insert it? Is there a way of un-spamming a comment that I haven’t discovered?
The Simple Digest Report is below – note complete lack of info for second comment:
Report on comment number 151 (id=6369)
Comment Author: Steve
Comment Type:
Comment Content:
Blah blah blah….
Spam Karma 2 Report:
Link Counter: good_karma 0.5: Comment has no URL in content (but one author URL)
Encrypted Payload: bad_karma -20: Encrypted Payload missing from form.
Overall Karma: -19.5
=======================================================
Report on comment number 152 (id=6370)
Comment Author: Mark L
Comment Type:
Comment Content:
Blah blah blah….
Spam Karma 2 Report:
REPORT ENDED
2005-04-26 at 5.58 pm
Thanks for your fast response Dr Dave.
I take it back folks – SK2 wasn’t to blame.
The false positives stopped when I disabled the Encrypted Payload setting.
DD suggested:
So I forced my heavily modified WP1.2 index.php page into a customised WP1.5 theme using the updated comment script and bob’s-yer-uncle! (touch wood).
I also just upgraded the Simple Digest Plugin to O.21 Alpha which should fix the lack of full digest report on the last item issue, and also seems to answer my question about how to best rescue spam.
2005-04-27 at 1.21 am
well well well, i can only laugh at all the information i had givin thoes poor babys i wantet to help,
gee if you would help thoes people i wounld be doing ur job(hahaha just being tought):lol:
anyways if you could post it for me if you got a copy if not i will try to type it again am i cool or what….
2005-05-01 at 2.54 pm
I am a moron with a Tourette problem. I can’t read sentences with more than 3 words in them.
[DdV's Note: edited for clarity. And a word in passing: I am the only one with cursing power on this blog... Now go wash that dirty mouth of yours]
2005-05-04 at 11.16 pm
You WILL fall by the wayside…..why? because of your lack of simplicity (not to mention your longwinded explanation of why comments are bounced/eaten. Welcome to the land of Verbosity!
2005-05-05 at 10.29 am
Bald Avenger: True words indeed. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not big on brevity.
Now, here is your short answer: “Nothing’s perfect. SK will eat legit comments. Start by upgrading before you bitch. Feel free to take a shot at it if you can do better.”
What do you think? better?
As for the long rambling above, I guess people who really want an answer will have to read through the verbiage…
The Hairy Avenger aka dr Dave
2005-05-14 at 4.43 am
Got blocked leaving feedback at a website welcoming feedback. Karma- if it’s true that what goes around comes around, you’ll get yours. Idot’s
2005-05-14 at 7.20 am
This is a crock!!! I innocently was trying to post a message to a mommy and daddy who have lost there child and tell them how sorry I am for there loss and you ignorantly said that I was a NASTY SPAMMER!!! What the hell is that shit!!! I think you need to rethink your little website here because these Mommies and Daddies who look forward to reading new posts on there childs website are NOT GETTING THEM BECAUSE YOU TELL PEOPLE THEY ARE NASTY SPAMMERS!!! BULLSHIT!!!
2005-05-16 at 1.56 pm
Man oh man. Isn’t it wonderful how you try to help out a community and those with such little knowledge on the way these things work decide you are to blame when the comments are blocked, or their dog dies, or they run out of cereal. Sheesh. Mad props to you for taking the time to help the wordpress community out. I am going to install SK2 shortly. Thanks!
2005-05-20 at 8.32 pm
either a dog dies, or someone’s cereal gets busted or whatever. SK needs friggin redesigning, because I can only post from behind a proxy, but I’m not a nasty comment spammer. and there are lots more like me.
[usual bout of brainless vulgarity removed]
Go ahead, block me.
2005-05-21 at 9.28 am
With your SK you’re cutting off a lot of italian internet users because a great isp (fastweb) gives internet connection by cable but in LAN (or better MAN) using a proxy to get out to the internet.. we’re talking about one/two million people.. we’re not spammers!!
2005-05-23 at 12.59 pm
I just got blocked from posting a comment on some dude’s blog, and I followed the link here. Immediately my “mental death rays” went out to all the spammers of the world, and not you. Although I am not much of a blogger (or bloggee), I do appreciate what you are doing as I have a deep and abiding hatred for spammers.
My comment was not spam but it was blocked. I just want to help you to improve your software, so please let me know if there is any more information I can provide you.
Very best,
CC
2005-05-26 at 10.19 pm
I honestly feel bad for all those who contact me with polite assistance requests but I have no qualms clicking on the ‘delete’ button instantly whenever I spot a suspiciously high number of ALL CAPS or strong !?! punctuation inside a mail.
Hmm, do you now. The power, eh, you can choose to ignore people’s emails or deign to help them. That must brighten up your sad little life.
2005-05-28 at 7.28 am
I Really Hate You Alot. SK is Pathetic and really should be removed. I had a viable comment and was called a nasty spammer because i put !!! that is pretty lame.
Lozer……
2005-05-31 at 5.10 am
The site http://roachfiend.com/archives/category/extensions/ Is the site that keeps blocking me from poster please alert them to update.
2005-05-31 at 5.14 am
If your an AOL user, All becuase we use 172.19X.XXX.XXX.XXX( x’s are random numbers) as numbers in our ip so technically your borrowing someones IP address therefore someone spammed using the same ip address you get assigned to logging on to aol u get blamed. I hate spammers and aol.
2005-06-12 at 7.09 pm
are you going to delete this thread as well huh!?! i cant believe you can limit our freedom of speech like this! by a robot! this is terrible, I am greatly dissapointed!
2005-06-13 at 6.55 am
I agree with Tidewise in some respects I’ve been considering using SK2, but I opted not to. I have attempted to post on Jennifer Ledbetter’s site and it ate 2 of my comments, in some ways it is a deterent for me to even post to those who used SK2…do not get me wrong I know it takes talent to create a plug in and then work with those hidden bugs.
Great job on the plugin and kudos to those willing to help make it better.
2005-06-18 at 7.50 pm
Hey, I didn’t say anything offensive!!! Talking about freedon of the press…. this is laughable…. what next? Nanny watch????
2005-06-22 at 5.55 am
I need to download something is that correct so I can not be a spammer. I really thought this was a site asking my opinion and I gave it to the public. I did not mean to spam. That is fine, just tell me the rules.
[snip... comment that has nothing to do on this site]
Thanks
Claud J Dockrey ajka Chuck
2005-06-27 at 5.11 pm
May I respectfully file a motion for reconsideration for my comments under the universal right of free speech? thanks.
2005-06-27 at 9.40 pm
All right, so far I’ve been pretty lenient about the absolutely off-topic and mildly asinine comments to this entry…
From now on though, I will destroy personally and without warning any comment that blatantly shows that its writer hasn’t read a single line of the above post. If you cannot be bothered to read my explanation, I fail to see why I should care about your SK issues.
Cheers to everybody else
2005-06-29 at 10.57 am
gee.. i’m so scared…. hahahhahah… hey would you stop sending me spam mail or i’ll report you for spam abuse in my gmail. Who cares about your blog anyway and I suggest that everyone who is REJECTED here send me a note at bugsey1@gmail.com so we can start our own! It’s NOT AS IF you’re so great ….
2005-06-29 at 11.19 am
Spam Karma 2 works great for me! Thanks Dr. Dave
2005-07-03 at 1.39 pm
I love SK. I’ve had a comment or two rejected by it but if you read over the instructions it’s pretty darn simple to configure and you can always start with your settings low and adjust them as needed.
2005-07-04 at 10.36 pm
I’m not a WP user, nor a SK2 user…. but after having a comment eaten by SK on a friend’s blog, I followed the link here to learn more about your software.
I am awesomely impressed at the huge effort you are putting in to try and battle all this stupid crap spam that has filled our cyber-world. Well done, and know that you are appreciated by so many more people than hate you.
Some of the comments above just make me laugh at how pathetic they are! You can’t try to help anyone in this world without being massively criticised! Pleeeeeease read the long explination above – it makes sense and is completely logical… if you care. Don’t be so ignorant!
“i cant believe you can limit our freedom of speech like this! by a robot! this is terrible!” – to this loser: dr Dave provides the software which the *blog admin* installs themselves! You have no right to come back to him and whinge about your freedoms of speech!
Right… now that I have that off my chest – well done dr Dave! You are one of the few people really trying to make a dent on the spam of this world, and many people do appreiate your efforts! Thanks mate!
2005-07-06 at 12.47 pm
i was surprise to see my comments eaten up but whatchamacallit. geesh, you just watsed my damn time, man. sorry, just got frustrated.
2005-07-08 at 10.07 pm
please clear me.
2005-07-09 at 4.08 am
I did run into one very specific funny problem on one of my favorite blogs that’s got Spam Karma -
I have found that in the quirky font used for the match-the-numbers&letters test, there are a few characters where I am not sure whether they are numbers or letters – I think it’s probably 0/O, 1/I, and then there was at least one less obvious one, like 8/B, 2/Z, 5/S or some such thing – sorry, this was a while back, can’t remember specifics – anyways, I ended up getting a test one time that included more than one of those ambiguous characters, I failed to get the right combination one time too many, and from that point on that guy’s Spam Karma decided I was a bad guy & I have had problems leaving comments there since then.
I do have a very old & not terribly high-res monitor at home (which is not where I am right now) so that may have exacerbated the problem – but figured I’d mention it here.
2005-07-09 at 4.19 am
I was surprised to be accused as a spammer. I even posted my real name in the registration form. I think I’m very respectful of other’s opinions. You can review all the comments I posted. I never used any foul and nasty comments in the blog. Perhaps, i punched wrong keys, I do not know, but I understand your predicament. I’m not sure if you of I can fix the problem. It’s just disheartening that I may no longer be part of the lively discussion in the PCIJ’s blog.
Nonetheless more power.
2005-07-09 at 10.19 am
Bonnie: This is indeed a real problem with CAPTCHA. But there again, things have been improved with the newer version: SK2 uses a very easy, straightforward font, with little way to confuse readers. Also, the captcha page very clearly states that it *only* uses letters A to E and number 0 to 9, precisely to avoid that sort of confusion. Sorry if it wasn’t clear enough.
Lionel: Once again, please read the entry above for explanation as to why SK might mis-identify you. In PCIJ’s case, I have noticed a *lot* of people coming from their blog, so I am quite sure they have made some very stupid mistakes while configuring it. First of all, they ought to upgrade to SK2, then, they probably should check their configuration, since the apparent rate of false positives they get is way above average. I tried quickly to find a comment form on their site, but they haven’t got one, and frankly I have other things to do than run after each of my users to teach them basic computer use… If you are one of their reader, I would recommend doing such a thing…
Cheers everybody
2005-07-13 at 6.18 am
While I wasn’t thrilled to be mis-identified as a spammer when posting to a blog, maybe there’s an unexpected benefit: if I can’t post there, maybe I’ll spend less of my work day there…
2005-07-15 at 1.45 pm
Dr Dave,
I’ve been using SK1 for some time, and I think it’s the bee’s knees. I will certainly upgrade to SK2 when it’s out of beta, but so far as I know, I’ve never even had a false positive under SK1. We don’t get a lot of comment traffic (except from spammers), but your little plugin has kept almost all of the spam off my website since I installed it. Muchas gracias.
–Michael
2005-07-20 at 8.29 pm
Thanks
2005-07-22 at 12.28 am
Dr. Dave,
Being a slow day and thumbing through updates of WP, I have run into this circus page
You are great, the ‘one’ holding the lamp light always gets shot at.
The fact that someone is taking FREE software and bitching about it automatically shows ignorance and a very valuable look into their intellegence.
I think I have read through most of these comments and come to one conclusion, what if there was no facility AT ALL to remidy the spam explosion of the early years of the internet?
These people that complain ultimatly cannot see past there noses and become enlightened to the fact, if it wasn’t for US programmers, YOU would have nothing. The internet would be like watching tv with 27-7 commercails.
I along with most people like Dr. Dave were on the internet when there was BBS and no damn Browsers. We get our strength and undieing innovation from the belief of what the internet CAN BE!, what is WAS before the proliferation of the slim ridden capitalism that hit it in the mid 90’s
Dr. Dave can be seen as a Commander marching into the front lines of VERY hostile territory and does it with a smile, that is my kind of human!
March on, and remember Dave, you got backup, you just can’t seem them all
Peace, Mike
2005-07-29 at 5.41 am
I ambled over here and found this page after (finally!) upgrading to SK2 Final. I’m now linking to this page from my About page so I don’t have to explain endlessly why comments might not get through.
I find the above text and comments endlessly amusing, even the instructions and explanations are humorous from my point of view. Oh, the bitter outrage of the falsely accused (or perhaps rightfully accused?). If they had an understanding of language (specifically punctuation, spelling, and capitalization) and knew a little bit about netiquette (which all of us old timers suffered through in the early days), it’s very likely their comments would not be trapped in ‘comment purgatory’ and they would not get sent to this page. If they’re not laughing by the time they reach the footer of this page, then I guess they can’t be helped.
My only regret is that this excellent plugin is not available for Movable Type. Don’t get me wrong, MTBlacklist and the other plugins for MT are pretty good, but I have such praise for SK2 that I find myself wishing for a version of SK2 for my MT blogs, as well. (And yes, I do use multiple web applications over several domains.)
I have nothing but praise for DrDave and SK2 and the developers of the plugins that are inside SK2. Thank you so much for a job well done.
2005-07-31 at 5.53 am
Thank you Dr. Dave for SK2.
I hit your tip jar. Not much, but you have seriously saved me hours and hours and hours of deleting spam. I’ve recommended SK2 to all my friends that use WP.
Thanks again!
regards
meeciteewurkor
2005-08-08 at 9.34 am
Cheers to ya Dr. Dave. So far, previous versions of Spam Karma have wiped out about 3000 spam comments on my blog and only snagged about 2 false positives… and a quick tweak fixed that. It kept me from having to disable comments completely.
For those of you running blogs with false positives (who want to see exactly what is getting blocked and why), do a quick google search for “CJD Spam Nuke”. Its main purpose is to let you clean-sweep your old spam from the MySQL database, but it also lets you unspam comments marked as spam. Very handy.
2005-08-14 at 12.38 am
I will *never* have a WordPress blog unless SpamKarma is installed with it. I run a hosting company, and offer new bloggers a hosting plan that comes with WordPress by default. I ALWAYS install and activate their SpamKarma with their new blogs. Many don’t know that it’s there, but those that do and know what it is praise me for the effort.
Thanks DrDave for a great product!
2005-08-15 at 8.18 pm
Dave, Spam Karma is a life-saver. Without Spam Karma, it was impossible to keep up with all the spam and I was going to close comments if I couldn’t resolve it. It’s worked fine since I installed Spam Karma. Only today, after about 4 months of usage, did I get my first false positive. One suggestion: in the digest email message, would you be able to include some links to this page and related pages?
Thanks,
Michael
2005-08-17 at 3.35 pm
Thanks for preventing the nasty spams
2005-08-18 at 8.05 am
sorry, had proxy settings on. having problems resetting. also he is a she & seems like your soliciting money as I don’t spam.
2005-08-18 at 8.12 am
[...] Just a quick note to say sorry to those of you that have had some false positives and been blocked by our spam software in recent weeks. We are generally very happy with our spam plug in. On occasion when there have been problems, we have switched it off, and been required to moderate literally hundreds of spam comments per day manually. We are currently upgrading our version of the plug in which should solve many of these problems. The post here explains why some of you may continue to have problems with the spam comments, and if you do, please email us to let us know. Normally we can retrieve comments which have been blocked, or change our settings if they are causing us too much trouble. [...]
2005-08-23 at 10.27 am
Look, this article is entirely too long. I came here because my comment was blocked. I don’t need to read a diatribe on how your program works or how many emails you get containing death threats weekly. I now feel many precious moments of my life have been wasted. If you want to remedy this then create a page with a short message with the list of “Why was my comment blocked?” and be done with it.
2005-08-24 at 3.29 am
[...] http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/false-positives/ [...]
2005-08-31 at 10.18 am
ummm….I still don’t understand how it listed me as a apmmer…but if you find my IP on your list…please remove it.
2005-09-02 at 8.52 pm
Dear Dr. Dave:
I have this small red mark on my forehead… and I was wondering if you could tell me how to set my spam karma so that people who’ve posted regularly would not be put onto the blacklist each time they post.
I end up going into the “recent spam harvest”, checking off their names and choosing “recover selected”. Then I added their IPs and Domains to the Whitelist, but the next time they post, they’re still in the recent spam harvest and I have to do it all over again.
I’ve even changed some of their scores to 100 in the “switch to edit mode”, but this doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Is there any way for me to permanently have them not added onto the spam harvest so they can just post all the time? And do you have any type of cream for me to put on that red mark?
2005-09-03 at 2.16 am
BTW, I forgot to mention that I am using SK2, and I have read your post, but obviously nothing there is hitting me if you’ve mentioned how to fix this.
Thank you, Dr.
2005-09-03 at 9.29 am
Jafer: your install of SK2 probably has a configuration problem from the get-go. There’s no way it should blacklist people by default. Most likely culprit is a Theme that’s been hacked beyond compatibility with WP 1.5.1. Have you checked the Troubleshooting page in the Wiki? Especially the part regarding theme compatibility?
If that hasn’t helped, contact me via the form or email with the karma details of each spam caught (you can get the detailed reasons for blacklisting, by hovering on the karma score in the “recent spam harvest” screen).
And for your forehead, I recommend aloe: it’s always worked well for sunburns here.
Cheers
2005-09-07 at 1.13 am
Okey, dokey, I got rid of one of the plugins I was using (preview comments and validate them) because it changed the comments page.
Then I added the do_hook thing in the comments.php and I think it’s all working ok now.
I say that because someone just commented on my site and the comment wasn’t put on the blacklist or into any kind of moderation (as should be the case since she’s commented there before).
And thank you Dr., for helping me clear up that nasty rash
2005-09-25 at 1.29 am
Dr. Dave: Thanks for this plugin. I was getting 40 to 50 spams a day, and I hardly get any traffic on my blog. This is a real life saver.
And to all spammers: Hurry up and die. You’re a huge waste of food and a drain on the people who don’t mind doing actual work for a living.
2005-09-25 at 9.31 pm
I finally caved in and installed SpamKarma 2 yesterday.
I’ll admit… its interface is pretty daunting at first to someone who is used to ‘plug in and go’, but if it keeps the spam away from my blog (and from flooding my inbox with comment moderation messages), it’ll keep me happy.
I must say, however, that I find it very amusing that there are so many whiny little brats, complaining about how they get tagged as spam in someone’s blog, and how it’s “your fault” that they get nailed.
It’s almost blogworthy, to be honest.
2005-10-02 at 4.43 am
Evidently, there is nothing which can be done with the user (I) is connecting via a library connection. Which I do – a lot – when I’m on the road. And as a lecturer and magician, I’m on the road a lot.
So the short answer is, there is nothing which I nor the site admin can do.
The long answer is the same as the above, but in 20,000 words.
Yes/No (check one)
*jeep!
–Chet
2005-10-02 at 1.49 pm
Chet – ask the site admin to register you as a level 1 user – then you will be able to log in to the site and comment without being harrassed by S.K.
I run a blog that has a high ranking for “men”, so I usually get 100+ spams a day. I couldn’t allow public comments if it wasn’t for the heroic efforts of Dr Dave.
2005-10-05 at 2.22 am
The thing is, it’s just not very nice to be blocked, is it?
Gmail now has 99.99% accurate (for me at least, over the last 15 months) spam blocking on email. It is literally not a problem any more – I have recently stopped checking the spam folder. Before I stopped I had had 1 false positive in thousands upon thousands of emails.
So there’s obviously a better (probably Bayesian) way. I can’t wait until someone develops it for blog comments too. I hope Spam Karma gets there, but on my recent experience it isn’t there yet. Good luck.
2005-10-05 at 6.17 am
The problem with bayesian is that it requires a large spam sample in the first place to work extremely well. You could try using Spam Assassin ( http://www.ioerror.us/software/wp-spamassassin/ ), but id ont think all people have enough permissions to install SA on their servers, so SK is good for that situation.
And GMail…they just blocked 4 emails about my order from TigerDirect. I think they have a way to go because TigerDirect isn’t a small company, and the content of the emails isn’t even remotely spam sounding. As for the other way around, they let a blatently obvious spam email through which is very odd, because all the other ones that were like it (just had different random letters put in it) were blocked (I get them like 5 at a time).
Sadly, no solution is perfect. Of course it isn’t nice to be blocked, but sadly it will happen, for the oddest reasons to seemingly random people.
2005-10-05 at 10.28 am
Even the site administrator can’t understand why I was being blocked when I was using the library’s wi-fi. We’ll find out tomorrow if I’m blocked from my new location in this hotel in Philly.
*jeep!
–Chet
2005-10-05 at 10.46 am
Chet
There is one big thing your admin can do: upgrade!
All the signs indicate he is still using Spam Karma 1.x, support for which was discontinued close to one full year ago now. I actually refuse to spend a single minute supporting it any more. Upgrading to SK2 takes one minute and fixes every known problem of SK1.
If (and I would be mightily surprised) he is indeed using SK2, then knowing the exact diagnosis (and guaranteeing your next comments go through) is as easy as going to the Manage -> SK2 -> Recent Spam Harvest screen, hovering on your comment’s karma column to see the reasons listed (use of an anonymous proxy may be one, but in that case SK2 would just give you a captcha and let you through). Then, selecting your comment and clicking on “Recover” will not only make your comment go through, but whitelist your URL and IP, and ensure that they whatever problems they may have is overlooked the next time you comment.
Thomas
Same as Chet: I would like to know the version of SK that did it. I suspect SK1. A properly installed version of SK2 has simply no way to flat out block a random user without first giving out a captcha or moderating.
I seriously doubt Gmail is anywhere near 99.99%: I occasionally use one, had at least a few false positives, and most definitely do not receive mail in the hundreds, let alone the thousands (you do the math).
So far, the rate of SK2 is way above 99%, probably in the higher 99.9% (as far as not catching legit comments. It is a bit more lenient on possible spam going through). I have had no report of false positives in months, in fact, I would love to hear from anybody with a case (including some details and logs from SK2) so I can fix what would most likely be a bug.
Regarding Bayesian filter: they won’t work for blog spam. I’m way too tired of explaining why. But you go ahead if you don’t believe me. There is a reason io_error gave up on SpamAssassin for WP: it just doesn’t do the trick.
There are a few improvement that could probably take SK2 one or two notch closer to five 9’s (and we are damn close right now), but, believe it or not, I have a day job and a rent to pay… and squashing spam sure as hell doesn’t pay my bills. So it will come one day when I have a sec to spend on it.
2005-10-13 at 12.35 am
This is the first time I have ever been “blocked” from any site….
I don’t take it personal…there are too many sites to leave my opinion on….
But, it was strange, indeed.
2005-10-29 at 7.37 am
[...] Pilih Spam Karma 2 atau Akismet? lihat lagi cara kerja Spam Karma 2 dan lihat review Akismet, baru tentukan pilihan anda [...]
2005-11-04 at 3.47 am
[...] I’m almost looking forward to the feedback I’ll get. Today the big run was ringtones. [...]
2005-12-03 at 1.08 am
Dr. Dave,
I’m having strange problems. I have not changed setting in SK2, but now commenters who have successfully commented in the pat are being blocked, as are legitimate pingbacks. Most recently (today), I received the following in my SK Report Digest:
==========
=+ Comment #12
Reason(s):
Moderating pingback spam.
Author: ‘One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »’ matched …
Author: ‘One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »’ matched …
Author e-mail: ” matched
Author: ‘One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »’ matched p…
KARMA: -14
Treatment: hell
Comment posted on Post ID: 1325
Added Author IP to auto-ip list (66.98.142.96).
Added URL to auto-url list (www.donaldsensing.com).
Author : One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »
Email :
URL :
http://www.donaldsensing.com/index.php/2005/12/02/us-efforts-produce-results/
IP : 66.98.142.96
Comment:
[...] [...] +=
=+ Comment #13
Reason(s):
Moderating pingback spam.
Author IP: 66.98.142.96 matched 66.98.142.96 (non-verified IP).
Author: ‘One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »’ matched …
Author: ‘One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »’ matched …
Author e-mail: ” matched
Author: ‘One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »’ matched p…
URL:
http://www.donaldsensing.com/index.php/2005/12/02/us-efforts-produce-results/ matched http://www.donaldsensing.com (non-verified regex)
KARMA: -18
Treatment: hell
Comment posted on Post ID: 1325
Added Repeating Offender IP to permanent ip list (66.98.142.96).
Author : One Hand Clapping » Blog Archive »
Email :
URL :
http://www.donaldsensing.com/index.php/2005/12/02/us-efforts-produce-results/
IP : 66.98.142.96
Comment:
[...] [...] +=
=================
The site blocked is very much one of the “good guys”. I’ve added the IP to the White List, and hope that this will suffice. Is there anything more I can do?
Thanks, very much, for all the work you’ve put into this. SK2 is successfully blocking hundreds of spam attempts daily. Were it not for SK2, it’d really be impossible for me to continue my blog. But I do need to keep false positives under control.
Could I ask, too, for a pointer to documentation that explains each of the settings in the SK2 controls?
Thanks, again.
2006-02-19 at 10.08 pm
> BC: thanks for illustrating my point. Go to hell.
LOL classic
Hey Dave, just wanted to thank you for the great read. It was very funny, only surpassed by some of the stupid comments that people have left. I’ll bet most of them were spammers who are just pissed off that your making their lives harder.
I’ve been working on various ideas for stopping comment spam and bot signup myself, so I truly understand how friggin impossible your job is. Especially when you have to rely on all users being able to perform better than spam bots. Judging from the comments left here, it’s obviously an uphill battle. =D
Keep fighting the good fight.
2006-02-20 at 12.02 am
I have an account with SBC DSL, one of the biggest internet providers in the country, and I was wondering, since it connects automatically via a proxy server, will this mean I am forever banned from any blog sites that use your software? I noticed at my banking website it always tells me that they don’t recognize my computer even though I use this one every time, so I assume my location is being masked in some way. Which is good considering what with all the crap King George has been trying to pull lately. But, my connection is the same as millions of peoples’ and I don’t know much about servers at all obviously, but this seems really limiting. I applaud your clever tactics against spammers and share your hatred toward them for ruining much of the internet. I just wish I wasn’t being punished for it.
2006-02-20 at 12.10 am
Cory
Spam Karma (ever since version 2) does no longer look at the use of a proxy. It will try to check that your IP is consistent between pulling the form and posting it, but even that is not a showstopper (you’d be given a captcha). SK1 wouldn’t like it at all, but frankly, if anybody is still using SK1 at this point, this is way beyond my call (it’s been officially dropped from support more than a year ago, now).
At any rate, your comment being here would indicate you don’t have a problem with SK2.
As for your ISP using a proxy, rest assured it doesn’t protect you from anything, unless you are confident they’ll sooner blow up themselves and their machines than surrendering trace logs to a subpoena. On the other hand, there are many cases where it will creates unwarranted troubles for you, mostly for the sole point of saving your ISP’s bandwidth… But I guess if you don’t have a choice…
2006-03-07 at 10.22 pm
I love Spam Karma. It has saved me more often than not. I do check regularly the spam harvested side to see if anyone did get caught in the net. If too many show up I look at the settings and see what I can do. A few get in the there… but blame the spammers.
Great piece of work.
2006-03-08 at 2.45 pm
I have nothing but praise for SK2. It has stopped a great deal of spam on my blog (who the hell thinks that anyone’s going to buy stuff posted in spam anyway?), and to my knowledge I’ve never had a false positive.
Kudos to you dr Dave! Screw all those whiny bitches.. this plugin rocks.
2006-03-10 at 4.00 am
I am glad I came across your post. Thanks!
2006-03-10 at 6.46 am
Hello Dr. Dave. I have had a bad Karmic experience. An innocent message to a blog was torpedoed by your device. Now, being as I spent my study time on Inuit soapstone carving instead of computer machine thingies, the extent of my internet expertise may be summed up thus…don’t drool on the keyboard. Question for you…will I hear back from the blog guy about the problem? I worry that if I try to post even a different message, then Vishnu will send me to some dark place where the stench of fear rises like fog on the moors and all hope dies an ugly death. I pray for mercy, (and options), (and the winning lottery numbers, but I digress). I did read your information above, but being of limited ability in this area, you could have written them in Sanskrit and my ignorance would be no greater. Save me please. Cheers and many happy reincarnations to you. Your pal, Chris
2006-03-10 at 9.46 am
Chris
Inuit soapstone carving, eh? I bet there’s lots to be studied in that field. It was a real coin-toss for me between this and something more technological (finally picked Math, for the chicks).
Well, your problem can be summed up thus: your message has been put in a very remote, very hidden place, where any conscientious Blog admin should see it, recognize it for what it is (not spam) and restore it to the blog. However, that blog your comment was torpedoed on, is not maintained by a conscientious admin, otherwise he would not be running a version of a product that was released close to 2 years ago and updated umpteenth times ever since (2 years in software is about equivalent to 3 or 4 ice ages). So if you really want to insure he gets the comment, and also if you are feeling charitable toward him and others, you are better off contacting him.
The problem is that, indeed, the rakshasa standing at his blog’s door might know your smell by now, and be even more anger-stricken the next time you try to comment. So you should only attempt to contact him through a different channel: email is your best bet, hoping there is some sort of a contact address somewhere on his page. A contact form might work too. As for the content of your message to him, telling him to upgrade his obsolete spam filter and sending him to this page, might be enough.
Sorry again you ran into trouble with some of my now long disavowed creation and have a good day.
2006-03-20 at 11.00 pm
[...] ….aber ehrlich gesagt, ich versteh nicht ein Wort von dem was da zu den False-Positives steht. Ist da draussen vielleicht jemand, der mir einen Wink geben kann? You can also bookmark this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos [...]
2006-03-26 at 3.04 am
I just tried to leave a message on Dylanchords.com, but was chucked out and redirected here. Drats! I don’t have the brains to study all this stuff; it looks like I’m a cornered rat.
2006-04-23 at 6.22 pm
Dave,
A question if I may?
I recently started posting to a farily popular climate blog. The link at their site claims they are using SK2. My first handful of posts went through with no problem. My ( I think) fourth post was spam filtered by Spam Karma. Since then I have been going through cycles of: make a successful post or two, post again and get filtered, contact the admin, get my posts released, post a couple more, get spanked (i.e., all my posts removed, not just the new ones filtered), contact the admin, get them restored…. lather rinse repeat.
My question is, is this normal and necessary behavior for SK2? Is there something the admin can do… a white list or anything, to flag my posts as not spam? Or do I simply (as the admin at that site says) have to endure this for a while until SK2 figures out I’m not a bad guy?
Thanks.
(and is it out of order if I say that at the moment I’m dreaming of a word in which the concept of a “kill list” when applied to spammers, actually had physical as well as virtual consequences? Probably.. but I’ll say it anyway)
2006-05-19 at 8.43 pm
Hi,
I was making a post and the system ID’d me as a spammer? Help…..
I am not a spammer just have a curious mind and like the engage others on similar topics.
Thanks for any help in advance.
2006-05-21 at 7.28 pm
Hi! I found your blog while searching for Life Insurance Online and … hahaha just joking. Thanks heaps for all your work, donated a while ago and decided to put in a few more bucks when I reach 10k spams killed .. should be next week at this rate.
Anyway, thanks again for everything. Reading the outraged drooling above was a hilarious 10 minutes or so, by the way. Now I’m off to patent my new invention of a keyboard which can detect when too many normal words are being typed in ALL CAPS and reward the user for his patience and equanimity by administering a small electric shock.
2006-05-31 at 8.22 pm
dave just want to say great job with spam karma.
the flamers just don’t seem to understand how fucking stupid they look with the caps ridden “yelling they send your way”.
first off, you may create the plugin, but you don’t won the websites which use it. its up to the enduser to configure and correct false posivtives.
User settings: SK gives the user full control on how tough it should approach potential spam.
going after dave like a bad tempered moron is like going after the school after your kid fails an exam because he was jerking off.
second of all, even if you want dave to help you fix this situation why the fuck are you getting pissed off at him?? its not like he personally monitors every single comment in every single website and then PERSONALLY DECLARES YOU A SPAMMER by hitting a button. bunch of dumbasses.
and finally, so you get accidentally accused of “being a nasty spammer”. what the fuck are you? in first grade? is that the worse insult that’s ever been directed to you? well guess what? you have worse coming your way. all the idiots who were dropping angry insane comments above are all fucking retarded morons. does that make you feel better about being accidentally called a “nasty spammer” grow the fuck up.
sorry dave. i just got so pissed off reading all the nonsense. especially when you’re helping the community by providing stuff like this free of charge, some morons like those above just don’t get it.
people who try to help fight the spam get hated almost as much as the people who spam. its ridiculous.
hope you don’t get discouraged by the idiots, and keep up the good work.
2006-05-31 at 8.26 pm
my point is, if you really hate it that much, tell the BLOG OWNER to stop using it, or tell the blog owner that your comments are being rejected as spam, so that he can personally get your comment back. i dont’ know any blog owner who doesn’t like getting real, sincere comments to their posts.
what the heck do you want dave to do about it. get you a cookie?!?
2006-06-05 at 10.36 am
Dave,
Are you sure this extension is compatible with Firefox? Trying to post a response with just two web links in it, the system looks as though it tried to send me a captcha image to copy into the box. But all I got was the alternative text. I do have images turned on, usually run with javascript disabled but even when I turned it on, it made no difference. Then it told me I was a cowboy. Right pissed me off. Ended up emailing the blogger. Not quite the promised friendly interface that is promised.
I do not play with email “spam protection” systems that rely on challenge response because they generate more spam! Instead Bayesian filters do quite well.
2006-06-13 at 7.36 pm
How do you expect me to notify the numerous stupid people about my generic v1agRa products?!?!? I make a dman good living off the millions of spam messages I spew. Yes, there are suckers that buy my sugar pills.
Please stop your efforts, you are hurting us.
Generic-V
2006-06-13 at 9.20 pm
>Yes, there are suckers that buy my sugar pills.
You’ll be taking those sugar pills up your ass in your next life. When your soul requires you to visit a mental hospital on and off. Cause you just can’t get those millions of f@#@ing voices out of your non existant head.
Karma takes care of trash like you. The Universe didn’t begin yesterday when criminals and liars were invented. You give intellegence excersise.
Peace, Mike
2006-06-24 at 1.19 am
Ф сотне и ниибет!
2006-06-24 at 1.25 am
C 1 Июля 2006 года все операторы сотовой связи (ОПСОСы) меняют свои тарифные планы в сторону увеличения стоимости исходящих звонков и смс, чтобы, якобы оправдать расходы за бесплатные входящие. Всем известно, что за эти самые “Входящие” платят теперь и обычные “городские абоненты”. То есть мы с вами теперь будем дважды платить зажравшимся ОПСОСам. Если учесть тот факт, что в подавляющем большинстве стран операторы снижают цену, то нас держат за дураков и цену повышают.
1 ИЮЛЯ 2006 ГОДА НА ОДИН ДЕНЬ МЫ ОТКЛЮЧАЕМ СВОЙ МОБИЛЬНЫЙ В ЗНАК ПРОТЕСТА БЕСПРЕЦЕДЕНТНОЙ НАГЛОСТИ ОПСОСОВ!
Такая акция, в зависимости от количества участников может нанести серьезный ущерб зарвавшимся корпорациям и если акцию повторять хотя бы раз в месяц они не смогут больше нас обдирать.
Разошли это сообщение по своему контакт-листу в ICQ и придет к тебе радость в виде сэкономленных денег за мобильную связь.
Кто беспокоится насчет звонков по работе – ничего не случится. 1 июля – это суббота (выходной).
2006-06-24 at 1.26 am
C 1 Июля 2006 года все операторы сотовой связи (ОПСОСы) меняют свои тарифные планы в сторону увеличения стоимости исходящих звонков и смс, чтобы, якобы оправдать расходы за бесплатные входящие. Всем известно, что за эти самые “Входящие” платят теперь и обычные “городские абоненты”. То есть мы с вами теперь будем дважды платить зажравшимся ОПСОСам. Если учесть тот факт, что в подавляющем большинстве стран операторы снижают цену, то нас держат за дураков и цену повышают.
1 ИЮЛЯ 2006 ГОДА НА ОДИН ДЕНЬ МЫ ОТКЛЮЧАЕМ СВОЙ МОБИЛЬНЫЙ В ЗНАК ПРОТЕСТА БЕСПРЕЦЕДЕНТНОЙ НАГЛОСТИ ОПСОСОВ!
Такая акция, в зависимости от количества участников может нанести серьезный ущерб зарвавшимся корпорациям и если акцию повторять хотя бы раз в месяц они не смогут больше нас обдирать.
Разошли это сообщение по своему контакт-листу в ICQ и придет к тебе радость в виде сэкономленных денег за мобильную связь.
Кто беспокоится насчет звонков по работе – ничего не случится. 1 июля – это суббота (выходной)
2006-06-29 at 8.05 pm
I’m using and preaching SK2, and would like to thank you for a great plugin! Easy to install, easy to use, no problems so far with misidentified comments! Keep up the good work!
neurox,
Denmark
2006-07-21 at 10.17 pm
Hello,
Thank you for the great program.
You are my hero!
Brian
2006-07-27 at 6.40 pm
Looking good. Also, I’m checking on what level a random IP I am on is blocked.
2006-08-01 at 5.16 am
How do I download SK2?
2006-08-02 at 1.52 pm
Well done with all the work on SK2, Dr Dave- You do it for free, and take shit for it from people who honestly shouldn’t have an internet connection. Anyway, a link, for everyones education!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_in_blogs – A wikipedia article on blog spam (Blam [!!!]).
This is just another example of spam hurting everyone- and morons going after the only people visible, the people trying to stop it. Attention Morons/n00bs/anyone who can’t type or doesn’t use the right netiquette- Leave Dr Dave the fsck alone, or make something better. Would you rather there were *no blogs at all*, because they all had to shut down due to huge amounts of spam? Aghr! You guys really know how to get my atttention!
2006-08-15 at 1.18 pm
I am very puzzled. What is a char, when it is not a fish?
I tried to follow instructions in your anti-spam set-up but could not make sense of it.
Yours non spammingly,
Anthea Fleming
in Australia
2006-09-20 at 5.37 pm
Anthea, “char” is an abbreviation for the word “character,” or a single letter/number/symbol.
2006-10-25 at 3.31 pm
hi dr. dave! reading all the comments was a laugh.. it was worth wasting my time over. i have not yet installed your plugin in my blog, but i will sure add it up soon! thanks for the effort of fighting spammers (all you spammers die!). thanks very much bitter commenters for the funny episode! oh yeah dr. dave, i like your writing style, very sarcastic.. add that to my list of praises =p
2006-11-17 at 10.32 am
This was too funny….
2006-12-01 at 11.21 am
[...] Takim komentarjem se reče “false-positives”. [...]
2006-12-10 at 5.54 pm
Thanks for SK2, I was looking for a good anti-commentspam plugin for WP and after some searching and trying, this one is far superiour. Thanks again.
2006-12-18 at 2.22 pm
Hi Dave,
Will be implementing the SK2 asap. Seems well thought out and working as it was intended: Stopping the idiot spammers!
For those of you whiners above…get a life. This man has obviously decided to do something with his.
Again, thanks Dave. Will be in touch.
2007-02-19 at 10.06 pm
Just installed SK2 and looking forward to finally getting rid of the spam without the need to removing commenting rights for all.
2007-03-15 at 5.08 pm
Dr. Dave,
I’m not sure if my problem falls under what you are describing, so I wanted to leave you this comment in the hopes that maybe you could point me in the right direction.
Unfortunately, I recently purchased a new computer and do not have Microsoft Office. I DO have an email address (caroljim2000@comcast.net) but I cannot access it or send emails at this time. I registered with Libertas on my old computer, which is no longer online.
The problem I am having is that whenever I try to post a comment I’m directed to an “invalid syntax error” saying the page cannot be displayed. When I try to post the comment again, it tells me my comment is a duplicate and has already been posted.
I’m not sure if this is the same as the “spamming” problem you described. But I’m not sure who the “site administrator” is (you don’t identify him by name) ot how to contact him without email. I’m afraid this has become a “read only” site to me, which is a shame since its a great site and I’d love to get involved in the discussion.
If you can, leave a comment after mine (since I can’t receive any emails…which may actually be the problem now that I think about it) and I’ll follow whatever advice you have.
Thanks for your help,
Jim
2007-03-15 at 5.36 pm
Dr. Dave,
Oops, I thought you were affiliated with the Libertas website, I didn’t realize your program was available to other bloggers and that you aren’t affiliated with Libertas directly. I never got a “spam” message, I simply can’t post comments, and I’m wondering if its because the SITE is manually blocking my comments (its a Conservative site and I’m not a Conservative).
I’ll take up my question with the site’s “editor” (who I’m sure is also the administrator).
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Jim
2007-03-15 at 6.16 pm
Dr. Dave,
Sorry to bother you yet again, but I have some information that may help you point me in the right direction (or at least prove that Spam Karma isn’t the source of my problem).
When I try to post a comment, the screen I’m taken to has this message:
WordPress database error: [Lost connection to MySQL server during query]
SELECT * FROM wp_users WHERE user_login = ‘jimmylonewolf’
WordPress database error: [MySQL server has gone away]
SELECT post_status, comment_status FROM wp_posts WHERE ID = ‘4620′
“JimmyLoneWolf” is my screenname for Libertas (the website that uses your program).
Does this message indicate the problem you discuss above? Or is it something else?
Sorry it took me so long to get to the point, but i just can’t figure out why this is happening. Every other site lets me post with no problems. Any help would be much appreciated.
Jim
2007-03-18 at 5.04 pm
SK2 sounds great! And I LOVE your inclusion of Charles Ludwig Dodgson’s ‘Jaberwocky.’
2007-04-15 at 11.38 pm
[...] Dave’s Blog » False Positives — OK, I’ve just installed the newest release candidate of Spam Karma 2.3. If you are getting rejected comments please read this webpage cited above. Also send me a note. So your comment was denied on a blog, and the perennial Spam Karma error message showed up, informing you it couldn’t be posted (provided the blog admin was a responsible admin and was keeping up with versions, you should have gotten the “updated” message, which isn’t so nasty any more: if you received some rather offensive piece basically accusing you of spamming, please accept all apologies and keep going). [...]