Buh-bye Askimet
01 February 2007 – 3:01 pmI just pulled the plug on Askimet. Why would I do this to a plugin that’s been saving me about 1000 spam comments a day? Because once in a while it caught up a real comment. While I appreciate the effort these guys go through to thwart comment spam, one false positive is too many.
Instead I’ve installed the Did you pass math? plugin which asks a simple math question to test the human-ness (and basic intelligence) of the commenter. You’ll see it above the comment field below unless you’re logged in.
I first saw this plugin over at CostPerNews. Sam’s been using it there for a few weeks now. Vlad raised the issue as well and in response to his entry, there’s also a discussion going on at Bumpzee about it.
At first I was a bit put off by this plugin, not because I didn’t want to use the brain cell to answer the question, but that I simply forgot to answer it. And when I did, I’d get a terse message, “Answer the question!” It seemed to me that it could have been a bit nicer about it, especially if I didn’t see it in the first place. “What question???”
The other problem is that some browsers (Firefox) don’t keep the form data when you hit the back button, also not a great user experience.
So I did a quick modification to the plugin to (a) make the error message a little nicer, and (b) give the user a chance to copy the text they just entered in.
Now instead of “Answer the question!”, my error page looks like this:
Give it a try and let me know how it works. And if you want my modified plugin, let me know.
Update
Here’s my updated version of the did_you_pass_math.php file. It’s got a .txt extension on it so you can view it. This replaces the file of the same name (minus the .txt) in the plugins directory. I didn’t have to edit the language specific files in the subdirectories. This is only one of the files in this plugin. You should get the plugin at the source first, then replace this file. Enjoy.
I also made the field label red so that people wouldn’t miss it.
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28 Responses to “Buh-bye Askimet”
Thanks for raising the bar!
Hadn’t even considered making modifications to improve the user experience, but that’s a darn good point that I should have thought of!
Attempting to make the CPN process user friendly now…
By Sam Harrelson on Feb 1, 2007
Scott,
that plugin just asked me to add 0 and 1…. I sure hope to pass this “basic intelligence” test
What a great idea to modify this plug in, if I just have enough intelligence to do the same.
It should become part of the plugin.
By Vlad The Affiliate on Feb 1, 2007
I’ve updated the post above with a link to my modified plugin file.
By Scott on Feb 1, 2007
Just checking my math skills! I hope it’s not the same question it is asking to everyone . I answered (which is hopefully also the correct answer) to the same math problem Vlad was asked.
By Pranav on Feb 1, 2007
It’s confirmed Scott, you have too much time on your hands
All that time spent to stop the one spam that gets through, you must really hate spam!
Oh, and I can’t add, make sure the numbers stay below twenty or I’ll have to pull my calc out.
By Jim Kukral on Feb 1, 2007
I think you misunderstood me Jim.
It’s one legit comment that gets flagged as spam that is unacceptible.
I can’t go through thousands of spam comments to find the good ones.
By Scott on Feb 1, 2007
hehe, yep, i got it wrong, sorry.
By Jim Kukral on Feb 1, 2007
I also started using this plugin sometime back… I still have version 2.0 installed. It cut down all my spam. I went as far as using the technique on non word press sites, since it is fairly easy to implement… it works like a charm, and I have not received any complaints yet.
By Fernando on Feb 1, 2007
I’ll take adding 8+6 over a CAPTCHA any day of the week, despite my mathematical deficiencies.
By Chris Kramer on Feb 1, 2007
You could probably carry all the form data over to the failed page so there wouldn’t be any need to hit the back button
By Andy Beard on Feb 2, 2007
for sure, Andy, or present the error back to the blog page with the comment form intact, which is what I set out to do in the first place. I opted for the 10 minute modification.
By Scott on Feb 2, 2007
Great addition. And by that, I mean the addition of the math test, not the addition I just did.
Next, we need a Train A Leaves Chicago test for when the spammers figure this one out.
Has anyone ever played with “mouse signatures” of some sort for this? “Trace this pattern” or something similar on the way to the Submit button?
By Kevin Webster on Feb 2, 2007
What is the integral of e to the x? And here I thought I would never need to use calculus.
It seems like this would be very, very easy for a bot to identify and answer. I wouldn’t expect this to be effective for long.
By Michael Coley on Feb 3, 2007
Yeah, when the bots catch up, I’ll just move to differential equations, Michael.
I do like the two trains leaving Chicago word problems as well, Kevin.
I think what this solution has going for it is that it’s not widely used. If it becomes *the* method, it’s dead. Otherwise, it’s simply off the path of least resistence.
By Scott on Feb 3, 2007
But what about trackbacks. Trackbacks are in my oppinion just as important as comments, and unfortuantely, just as susceptable to spammers.
I also dumped Akismet, but in favor of Spam Karma. If a comment fails the filters, the poster can prove they are human by completing a captcha, and if they pass the filters, or are logged in they don’t have to worry even about that, whereas trackbacks can be occassionally monitored for any false positives as they aren’t as time critical as comments (though they are just as valuable).
By Dane Morgan on Feb 9, 2007
For sure, trackbacks are good. I get annoyed when I link to a blog and the trackback doesn’t show. For example, Revenews has trackbacks on moderate and most of the bloggers there are quite bad about approving them.
I installed a plugin that puts all trackbacks into moderation.
I moderate them and approve all legit ones.
By Scott on Feb 9, 2007
I should also add that I did have a love affair with SK2 for a long time until it started acting funny. The final betrayal came when it started marking a few good comments as bad and I switched over to Askiment to see how that would do.
It is very possible that I could go back to SK2 and be perfectly happy but I’m reluctant now having been bitten by both that and Askimet.
The bottom line is that in using something automated and algorithmic, you put total faith in them. Otherwise, to find any good posts that may have been marked as spam, I have to look at all the spam, which I was avoiding in the first place.
I have the same problem with email.
By Scott on Feb 10, 2007
Yep, that’s the tough thing. It’s hard to achieve an acceptable spam detection rate while totally avoiding false positives.
My favorite email spam product (Cloudmark Desktop, formerly called SpamNet) has problems with false positives. It detects over 95% of spam, but falsely flags about 1% of newsletters. As a result, I still have to slime my way through my Spam folder to rescue some legitimate emails, but it’s not too bad as long as I stay on top of it. I can find and unblock the handful of legitimate emails from 1000 spam emails in less than 10 minutes.
By Michael Coley on Feb 10, 2007
I took your advice and I tried installing “Did you pass math?” on my blog: http://www.firelead.com and it gave me an error and briefly took down my site for a while. I followed the instructions exactly in the instructions.txt. I quickly consulted the documentation, and when I got to the line that said:
“3a. I get a php error
It’s most likely your theme, it may not be compatible (I’m sorry, you are on our own here, there are just SO many of them).”
I was a little disappointed. I have a new version of Wordpress, and a new theme that I’ve heavily modified. I’ll try to dig into it a little bit and make it work, but until then Askimet will have to do. What I’d really like the authors of this plugin to do is make it work with ALL themes.
By Pete Firelead on Feb 12, 2007
I decided to go broader than
affiliate marketing in the name, though that’s all there is on the site right now. Personally, I belong to a few other communities and I can see the same sort of thing developing, but they wouldn’t mix with …
By Andy on Mar 20, 2007
Works well, thanks for making the two updates, the red font jumps out a bit more!
By Daved on Mar 26, 2007
I like the way the question changes. How easy is it to change the custom message if you get the answer wrong?
By Scott Gaines on Apr 13, 2007
Any idea why it doesnt seem to be working for me here:
http://www.framesdirect.com/eyewear-blog/beyond-rimless-the-barely-there-look
The form doesnt seem to be showing in IE 7 and it doesnt work at all in FF, I get the message “sorry it seems you dont know math” even when typing in the right answer. HELP!
Jaan
By Jaan Kanellis on Apr 23, 2007
Jaan,
I’m not sure, though my guess is that there is some conflict with the field name “answer”, maybe some other plugin is clobbering the value in that field or the resulting variable in wordpress.
To be clear, I didn’t develop this plugin, I just changed some of the behavior –cosmetic stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t have an intimate knowledge of it’s workings.
By Scott on Apr 23, 2007