On my blog, spammers are still able to circumvent the anti-spam measures EE provides, like Safe Mode forms and the blacklist. I don’t want to resort to captcha’s, because of accessibility issues. Then I remembered Akismet.
Akismet is this anti-comment-spam service set up by the people who brought you WordPress, and it works pretty darn well. And… Akismet’s got an API. I started coding and came up with a first beta (or rather: alpha) version of the Akismet extension for Expression Engine.
So now I need guinea pigs. If anyone wants to help me out and test the extension, then please give me a PM.
There’s one tiny catch: you’ll need a valid API key to use the extension. I got one for free and without fuss by registering at wordpress.com.
Attached is the Akismet Module/Extension Combo. It uses an extension to automatically check incoming comments and it uses a module to post-process the caught comments. Check out the readme file in the zip for further instructions.
Tested with EE 1.4.2 build 20060612 and onwards. To test it yourself: make sure you’re logged out and create a comment with ‘viagra-test-123’ as author. This will always be considered spam by the Akismet service.
Just wanted to give another update on this extension!
I have been using it for over a week now, and it’s brilliant. I use the Blacklist, htaccess, and Captcha’s on the parts of my blog that were getting the most SPAM, but that still didn’t stop at least one SPAM comment a day coming through. Since the Blacklist only works *after* you’ve added the URL, it doesn’t really help to stop them in the first place.
Askimet, however, has stopped 19 SPAM comments in the past 3 days alone. I went from having several SPAMs a day to having none. I haven’t seen a single one since I installed it. So far, it also hasn’t stopped any legitimate ones, it’s been 100% correct.
Lodewijk, I cannot find any bugs here whatsoever. Just wanted to let you know it’s working perfectly for me, and I am very happy that you decided to create this in the first place! Askimet is a very powerful asset in then on-going war against comment SPAM. :D
I’ve just purchased my first copy of EE to use for my web design/blog site, having been using Akismet with Wordpress up until now (Hi all, btw!). Thanks so much for much for releasing this as Akismet has blocked hundreds of spam comments from my WP blog and I was wondering how I would deal with spam following the switch to EE. I just hope that’s pleasant surprise number one of many!
I’ve installed this and it seems to work great. I do have a question, though. Does it work on trackbacks as well as comments? This is definitely where I’m experiencing most problems.
I’ve installed this and it seems to work great. I do have a question, though. Does it work on trackbacks as well as comments? This is definitely where I’m experiencing most problems.
It only works for comments for now. I’ll probably add trackbacks in a later version.
aug 8th 2006, edited to add: At the moment there’s no appropriate extension hook available in the trackback module, so I won’t be able to add the akismet check to incoming trackbacks…
I’m having a slight problem installing it - when I click the modules tab, I get this:
Error
Unable to load the following language file:
/lang.askimet.php
Any idea what I may have done wrong?
Make sure you put the lang.akismet.php and lang.akismet_check.php in your system/language/english folder on your server. The error message suggests EE cannot locate the file there.
btw, note the difference between your lang.askimet.php and my lang.akismet.php!
The way I use it: I have the blacklist turned on, the captchas turned off and comment moderation turned off as well. This way a comment is checked against the EE blacklist first. If it is caught by the EE blacklist, the akismet combo leaves it at that. If the comment passes al “native” EE checks, then the akismet combo kicks in with a final check. If the akismet service believes the comment is spam, then the comment is put into the moderation queue.
aug 8th 2006, edited to add: At the moment there’s no appropriate extension hook available in the trackback module, so I won’t be able to add the akismet check to incoming trackbacks…
This should become a feature request if it isn’t already ... I’d love to be able to use Akismet across the board for comments and trackbacks.
Hey, quick note. I’m getting an error now when I try and add even valid comments:
http://mcintosh.poetshome.com/blog/
Try and add a test comment on the test entry. I’m getting this:
The form you submitted contained the following errors
* Unable to receive your comment at this time.
Return to Previous Page
Any suggestions on what to fix here?
Thanks,
Jason
mc717990…You should start a new help thread. You probably won’t get many answers just tacking it onto this seemingly unrelated thread, or is it related and I don’t catch the connection?
Bingo - only got the error as I started testing akismet. Thought it was a bug there. Looks like it might not have been the duplicate entry issue - thanks anyways though Or something else I’d set, parameter wise - I’m playing with getting everything working, with this custom theme I’ve worked on, and, well, it’s been tricky at times
Anyways, thanks for the fast responses!
Jason
Just wanted to let you know it’s working perfectly for me, and I am very happy that you decided to create this in the first place! Askimet is a very powerful asset in then on-going war against comment SPAM. :D
