"Official" integration with Akismet

[MartinTruckenbrodt]

Hello drathbun,
Akismet is not only checking the message. It's able to check ip, username, e-mail and some browser information, too. And it's the job of the Akismet (and other blacklists using) application to use these test results in the right way. But here really is one problem with Akismet: You only can get one simple response: Spam? Yes/No. So you have to trust in the internal policies and rules of Akismet.

I will use your feedback for some extra tests with Akismet on one of boards next time.

Bye Martin

[callumacrae]

Akismet is intelligent, while some blacklists just see an IP and say that it is bad.

We were getting > 20 emails a week from users who had been blocked.

[callumacrae]

The concern that I would have with an effort to utilize Akismet for forums is that the type of spam posted on forums is not always the same as what is posted on blogs. The system relies on behaviors that are consistent from one blog to another. I'm not convinced that adding forums to the mix would work well, at least in the beginning, simply because the content won't be the same.

If every phpBB board were submitting to Akismet, it would change very quickly.

[MartinTruckenbrodt]

Hello Callum,
but Akismet could give a more intelligent answer. All other HTTP blacklists are doing it better and more usefull.

I need the ip addresses of the users and if possible the names of the blocking blacklists. Without this information your feeback is not usefull for me.

...

If every phpBB board were submitting to Akismet, it would change very quickly.

Great! In one point we have the same opinion!

Bye Martin

[callumacrae]

I can't just give you the IP addresses of my users...

I don think I have the logs any more anyway, but they were different ones every time.

[MartinTruckenbrodt]

Hello Callum,
feel free to test the new ABM 1.1.0 and then to send me the log.

Bye Martin

[/a3]

One issue with using Akismet would be privacy. Do people really want to be letting Akismet know about every account they register on the web?

I know I wouldn't.

[MartinTruckenbrodt]

Hello /a,
the questions are: Is Akismet a serious service? Do there ToS allow the re-use of the user data?
If users are trusting in a board founder or webmaster why they should not trust in a blacklist provider, too?

One other point:
You can check the messages with Akismet and not only ip, username and email. IMO the checking of the message would be a thing to think about. But blogs are public. And most of forums are readable for guests, too. So it's not a secret or a privacy thing. If there are restricted forums then you don't need Akismet for checking posts. You need it just for the user accounts.

Bye Martin

[callumacrae]

http://automattic.com/privacy/

We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.

Comments and other content submitted to our Akismet anti-spam service are not saved on our servers unless they were marked as false positives, in which case we store them long enough to use them to improve the service to avoid future false positives.

That's fine by me.

[Oleg]

http://automattic.com/privacy/

We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.

Any action of any company can be reduced to one of those bullet points.

For example: selling customers' data - this would be exercising the company's right to profit from their assets.