Akismet Does Not Learn; Sadly

Akismet is probably the leading Wordpress plugin for filtering spam comments. There is no doubt with the ability of the plugin to capture most of the spam comments that gets posted onto our blogs. But, there is a weakness that can go against all the goods done by the plugin; Akismet plugin does not learn. It is static.

When you mark a comment as “spam” in the plugin or submit it using the submit-spam API call, the mistake is noted by Akismet and it learns from your submission. – Akismet FAQs section

Akismet claims to learn from our submissions, but sadly enough, it’s not happening.

Well, I have been receiving tons of spam since I started blogging. But, there are certain spammy comments that pass through Akismet. One such cluster of comment is from sub domains originating from freehostia.com. I have marked them as spam for I-can’t-remember-how-long.

I(We) expect Akismet to automatically filter these comments based on my earlier actions, but it ain’t happening.

Like most of us, I use Gmail. If I mark a particular mail as spam either once or twice, the subsequent mails originating from that address automatically goes into my spam box. This is an ideal situation. If Gmail can do it, why can’t Akismet incorporate the same?

This is not a blasting-Akismet post. I would like to recommend the Gmail learning curve for Akismet to incorporate and make it a robust plugin.

Related posts:

1. Fighting Comment Spam without Akismet
2. Blog Commenting is a Dying Art
3. Top Ten Spamming Nations
4. WordPress : 10+ life saving SQL queries
5. Migrating from Wordpress to Joomla

Filed Under: Blogging • Wordpress