Akismet extension and module combo

Cool - I’ll give it a try - thanks for the super-fast response!

Great job Lodewijk! I think my PHP ignorance let me down with the changes you suggested making, so I downloaded the new version, overwrote the extension file, and bingo, working like a dream. Thanks again for this module, it is fantastic.

😊 btw, source of the problem

Hi Lodewijk. Sorry to potentially bring more head scratching to the table, but it seems that maybe the problem hasn’t gone away. I got an e-mail from a guy who tried to leave a comment last night and got the dreaded ‘API Key not valid’ message. Have I got the wrong files installed somewhere, or is this the same as before? His comment wasn’t held in the moderation queue. When I updated to the latest version, I only overwrote the extension - should I have done all the rest, too? I suspect this is probably my error, but if you could throw any light on it, I’d be really grateful. Thanks in advance.

I did some checking, and found that the code could be improved a teensy bit. The script handles responses from the akismet service in a better way, now. More fool-proof, so to speak.

Anyhoo, the slightly updated version is on my site (and I already PM’d you the new files, Andy).

Thanks Lodewijk 😊

Sorry if this has been requested previously (I haven’t read through the whole thread) but is this possible…

When spam comments do get through for whatever reason, instead of simply deleting them can we possibly flag them as spam and delete as you can within the module?

When spam comments do get through for whatever reason, instead of simply deleting them can we possibly flag them as spam and delete as you can within the module?

Sure you can. Just close the comments first and then delete them using the Akismet module.

ah right I didn’t realise that. cheers.

Love this!! Seems to be working well enough. I’ll see how trackbacks go as that is my major problem. I turned off CAPTCHAs as well to see what happens. Wonderful work! I didn’t even know something like this existed till today..lol. IMHO, it needs to be integrated into an EE future update (with applicable TB moderation of course. 😊 )

Couple Questions.

1) The moderate if unreachable option. Does comment moderation have to be turned on in the weblog preferences for this to work or not? I wouldn’t think so, but just thought I’d ask.

2) I noticed certain key words were highlighted in red when I was writing the comment part. I never noticed that before (but it could be a Konqueror thing). Does Akismet test against the comment content itself and URL, or just the author/email.

I entered the viagra-test-123 as author and email and it was immediately denied as blacklisted for the email address. However, when I used an innocuous author and email (me and [email protected]) the comment went through no problems. The content was viagra, akismet, testing, and a bunch of other stuff. The spam type words highlighted in red, but still went though.

I am probably gonna re-enable captchas as that stopped all my comment spam, but use Akismet for the trackbacks. I was getting slammed with 50-100 a day before I disabled trackbacks about a year ago. I turned them on from time to time to test the system, and in about 72 hours the slamming re-commenced.

So finally, in the vein of that last paragraph, a Feature Request. An option for disabling comment checks like there is for trackbacks. If I only need it for trackbacks, why have the overhead on the comment side. 😊

Thanks again.

Let me add to the compliments; this is a fantastic extension. I am wondering if you could explain how it gets called from within EE? Thanks!

I just installed this and it is definitely reducing the spam deluge, but a lot is still getting through. Any advice on how to change the settings? Improve the performance? All this comment spam is insane.

Hey shefinds,

While Akismet is fantastic in helping combat spam, it isn’t an “end-all” solution to spam. Are you using any of the other spam combat tools EE offers (like the blacklist and the Comment Spam Prevention Extension? Jambor-ee also has a great article on Spam proofing your EE installation that offers a lot of info on the subject.

Personally, I have a healthy blacklist built on top of the one EllisLab offers up, coupled with the Akismet module/extension and the Comment Spam extension. Very little (if any) spam gets through.

Just thought I’d stop by and give praise. I’ve been using this extension for awhile, and it works fabulously. I was just responding to another thread about comment spam this morning, and realized, that I was able to go longer than a month without even given a thought to how many spammers had breached the gates of my website. What a wonderful feeling of relief. Thanks so much for creating this Extension/Module so Akismet could work with EE.

I do have one suggestion though, since the Akismet site, links directly to this thread, it would be great if the most current download file was available in the first post like this thread. You can see the updates and know you are downloading the most current file, without browsing through pages and pages of replies.