Akismet Spam

I try pretty hard not to be spammy in any way possible and I see lots of sites that are very spammy that get great results in Google and Yahoo! That gets a little irritating at times but it’s the nature of the beast. What’s driving me nuts is Akismet Anti-spam WordPress Plugin.

The reason why we all have blogs is to post and get comments. . . and the commenters should leave links that are relevant and not spam. Akismet, for whatever reason, has decided that I’m a spammer. Even to my own blogs.

I tested this blog URL with some posts to my other blogs to see what was going on with Akismet and sure enough my comments went straight to spam. I emailed WordPress.com and they said that my posts on other blogs are appearing. Yes, I told them, on blogs that I’ve been approved on but on blogs that I’ve never posted on for whatever reason I’m sent to Akismet hell. They directed me to Akismet. They didn’t really get it at first. They seemed to think everything was just fine since some of my posts were appearing but when I explained to them that I did a test on one of my own blogs that I’ve never posted on with this url and it went to spam then they said, talk to Akismet.

Well, I checked out the WordPress forum and found others having this same problem. One thing suggested is for WordPress.com users to send an email to support for the person being seen as spam. That may help. The general consensus about getting help from Akismet is, you most likely won’t get any help. One thing many commented on in the forum is, Akismet has a tendency to label you as a spammer if you add any hyperlinks. Nice! No. . . don’t give me any useful links that might make my post better, that’s spam! Of course my blog in nofollow but a link is still a link and that is very spammy.

Personally I liked Akismet but when I think about it I start to wonder if it is really doing anything at all. OK, it separates out what it thinks is spam into a different menu. OK, and that helps me how? Now I have two menu items to look through because I can’t trust Akismet not to have lots of false positives. It seems that Akismet sees you as a spammer till proven wrong; however, once you end up going into the spam hell of Akismet is it really possible to ever get out? I doubt most really look at their Akismet spam to see how many false positives they have in there.

You would think that this spam detection software would be slightly “intelligent.” Shouldn’t it be able to spot a one liner from a 250 word comment and realize. . . despite what I’ve thought about this “spammer” in the past maybe this is a real comment. Just because they left a link in a comment once before doesn’t necessarily mean they are a spammer.

The more I blog the more annoyed I become at the internet. There are tons of “box” sites that actually get ranked. Tons of cross linking sites that are just google adsense and spam. Tons of spammers spamming every blog and scraping every post. And why is it all coming about? Because of all the stupid things google and yahoo have done over the years with adds, filters, etc. They’ve mad this mess and what I find funny about it is, they say they want it to stop but they have their adds on all these scraped and spammy sites?!?!?!?!

It’s just hilarious. Google wants everyone to nofollow anything and everything that might be questionable but Google adsense is on every single spammy ass site there is! Go figure?!?!?!

Sorbs

have you heard of SORBS? It’s a. . . well, I’m not sure who is behind it as far as the group goes, but it’s designed to list IP addresses of spammers. Great, right? Isn’t that what we all want, to know who the spammers are and to block them?

I have wp-ban installed on some of my bloggs to block spam comments. Well, after I found SORBS I had to rethink thinks a bit.

Here’s what happened. . .

I was checking out some possible new blog sites and went to blogates and clicked on get a blog tab and I ended up at SORBS. . .ok, I though?!?!!? What is this.

There’s my IP address in some database and I need to check it. OK?!?!? Maybe it’s some security thing, I think. So I check the IP and it says that it has been flagged and will be added to the database?!?!?!?!!?

What the f’!

I do some checking and it seems this IP address was added on April 7th of 2008. Since, this IP is on Comcast and it indicates in a funny way that possibly Comcast submitted the IP. . . I have no clue at this point. I give Comcast a call to see what’s up. The tech guy tells me that he really doesn’t understand it at all because, Comcast renews IP addresses every week and my router should renew at least every month, thus that isn’t necessarily my IP address for april.

Great, I think, now I have an IP address of someone who has been spamming and now I’m a spammer by association?!?!?!?!?!?

OK. . . is it me, or does this seem a little stupid at this point?

Going back to wp-ban plugin, if you ban someone’s IP address so they can’t comment and they, like me and probably most of us, have ISP that auto renew IP addresses randomly then you will be blocking someone else later who had nothing to do with the previous comments. Maybe not the best idea?

What I’m really curious about is, how in the world did someone setup SORBS without knowing this.

OH….here’s the big catch. Do a little searching on the internet and what do you find about these guys???

In order to get your IP out of the database you need to give a contribution to some charity they specify. Sounds a lot like blackmail to me.

I guess people that use this database use it primarily as an email filter; however, if you end up with an IP address that is black listed then you may have some email problems till your IP renews and you get a non-black listed IP.

So, is it stupidity, a good spam filter, or did someone just see a great way to coerce money out of people?

Farmers Markets

Spring is here and we’re are headed into summer and the farmers markets and starting up in the Denver area. Having lived in more rural areas at times I’ve always found the farmers markets there to be loaded with tons of fresh produce, often picked the day before if not that morning.

I’ve checked out two markets in the southern Denver area over the past couple of weeks and it’s very different from the rural markets I’m more accustomed to. The main difference is in the venders. There isn’t that much produce. Most of the vendors are selling more “custom” items. Things like soap or precooked food, lunches, etc. . . with only a couple produce vendors. I find that a little strange for a farmers market. It gives the feel of a flee market more than a farmers. I’m hoping that it changes as we go into summer. At the present time “custom vendors” are 5 to 1 for every produce vendor.

I guess if I wanted custom soaps, trinkets, stained glass, etc. . . I would go to a flee market and not a farmers market. What do you think?

Spring is here. . . finally!

Well the Denver area has had a long winter this year, so I’m told. It’s my first winter in the area and it wasn’t all that fun. Everyone told me before I moved here, it really doesn’t snow that much and it melts within a couple days. Yeah, right! Since I’ve lived all over the Western United States and generally like the warmer states this past winter in Denver kinda. . . well, sucked!

Now the temperature is up into the the 80s?!?!? Nothing like going from freezing to summer weather within a couple weeks. I can handle the shifts as long as I get more sun than clouds and I’m able to go outside without freezing at least a couple times a week. I’m really not partial to the cave dweller life.

Here’s to a great spring and hopefully even better summer! Time to get the BBQ out

Namecheap review

If you read my review on godaddy then you know I had a terrible encounter with their customer service. I’m sure many see that review as a bitch session; however, that was my experience with Godaddy’s customer service (and domains by proxy). Well, since then I’ve moved on to Namecheap.

For the most part the average user will not have a problem with their domain registration service; however, if you are a heavy user then you may want to checkout Namecheap.

I’ve had several encounters with customer service at namecheap already. One regarded a double charge for a domain name and they had it refunded in minutes. Other encounters were about their help and faq, they suck. They know they are lacking in this area and that can be a problem. Customer service was very polite about it and said they are working on better. All in all customer service as been good.

The features at namecheap are comparable to other domain name registration services. You will find that any of the big companies that register domains have enough features; however, what I like at namecheap is the ability to add and remove privacy. Unlike godaddy who requires you to go through domains by proxy to change this feature, and that was the cause of all my problems with godaddy, namecheap lets you add and remove it right in the user panel. That’s the way it should be. Why Godaddy insists on making you go through domains by proxy I’ll never know, especially since both companies are in the same building! Go figure. To me that just screams scam!

One thing all users need to realize is that the owner of the domain is whoever is listed in the Whois. Therefore, if you have privacy on then whoever is listed technically owns the domain; therefore, you want to be able to turn that off at will!!!!! I have heard of a godaddy customer having his domain name taken by godaddy and they claimed ownership. Last I heard he was taking them to court.

This brings up a very interesting point about my previous review. If you read it then you should know that there was something very fishy about the domain being “purchased” and the renewal date is as if I renewed it. Well, that domain is parked at godaddy still. I’m almost certain godaddy purchased it and was thinking they could sell it but since I said something they are a little stuck. It’s been sitting at godaddy for months now, and this isn’t the type of domain name people purchase to hold onto. It’s a rather meaningless domain name and would only be desired by very few, if any.

Anyways….

I have found certain features at namecheap to be less intuitive but I think that’s because they have more flexibility. Once I figured them out they are much easier to actually use and you can do more. All in all, there is a little learning with any of these user panels but namecheap has been very easy to work with and customer service response has been quick. They are geared towards heavy users, in my opinion. Certainly they can take care of little people like me, who only have 10-20 domains but they seem to really shine with heavy users.

I’m happy that I chose them and left godaddy. Checkout namecheap if you are in the market for domain names. I read all the reviews I could when I went looking for a new provider. It really came down to Godaddy Vs NameCheap. Well, since I had already experienced godaddy it really wasn’t much of a contest for me. Sure, there are lots of other companies out there but why pay double, triple, or even more when you get everything they offer at namecheap? So, that’s why I went with namecheap and thus far I’m happy with them. I do have domains at other places but namecheap is cheaper and works great.

Good luck with whomever you choose.