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[Rodnox]

I'm having a rather stupid problem.

Today a user said, that he can't comment on my blog.

So I tried myself and had to find out, that it's true. The commenting gets stuck after pressing the "Submit" Button.

Empty/blank page, the status bar gives "done" as pageload progress out and no comment has been saved.

The URL is: index.php?url=archives/242-Starting-over-.......html#feedback

Now, I've turned off any kind of capcha, anti spam or what so ever security control. Still, the same result.

Any suggestions?

[Rodnox]

Just updated the blogsoftware .. no errors, all green tiked boxes, but the comments still get stuck.

[Rodnox]

Alright, got it working.

Was an old, not updated anti-spam event plugin. sucks ...

[onli]

Well, glad it works. By the way, which one was it?

[Rodnox]

Been trying to find that out for the last hours.

Situation: I had 5 anti spam plugins loaded.
Spam Protector
Spam Protector (SURBL)
Spam Protector (RBL)
Spam Protector (BAYES)
Recaptcha

However, as I had inactivated all of them, it worked. So it must have been one of them.
After upgrading the event plugins, 3 of them actually turned out to be out of date. All are okay now.
Now I tried to reactivate them one by one. All worked on their own. Well, they are in place, but they don't seem to keep the spam out.
But all together bring the error again.

So I guess .... they kinda cause a conflict. I just cant figure what kind.


Can anybody give me a little tutorial on "how to efficiently and most safely use anti spam plugins" ?
Which ones to use? What ist the best configuration?

Cause either I'm using one of them and keep getting spam trackbacks every 30 mins or I use all of them and get rid of the spam ... and any other kind of comments.

[onli]

Well, i am a bit biased, i wrote the bayes-plugin. But i really think it's a good configuration to use that, let it learn a while, and combine it with the normal serendipity_event_spamblock (spam protector).

[Rodnox]

Alright, fair enough, let's start with this one than.

I've just reinstalled this Plugin (BAYES) and just this one. All others are gone.

When configuring I'm a bit lost on the options. Honestly, I have no Idea what the second and third options do (Custom Moderation & Custom Rejection ). How do they get their value?

In the extended menu: The Option "Analyse" (I think it's supposed to mean "Analysis"), I can select the last two spam entries .... and than? How do I declare them as spam? I can click on [GO!] .. that's it. Or do I miss something?
What happens when i Press [GO!]?

It's a bit hard to handle for somebody, that wasn't involved in the creation process.

It might be a pretty good plugin, I get the idea. But it's too elaborate to handle.
I think there is a good bit of room for improvement. (From a users point of view).

Never the less ... good work tho.

Maybe a little Text on the first configuration Page (directly after install) would help. Just the simplest steps and explanation of use.

[onli]

Oh. Thanks for that feedback!

It indeed means "Analysis". Probably got mixed up with the german translation. This menu is only for checking how the plugin works atm, how the filter is working. When you press go, it should lead you to a page where you can see the comment in its parts and the rating for each section.

If you want to mark something as spam or as valid, go to the normal comments-page and mark them there with the newly added buttons.

The second and third option: Is there no description-text, or is it simply barely comprehensible? The plugin calculates a rating of the comment, between 0 and 100% spamminess, and with those options you are able to say "moderate all comments with a rating > 50%, delete all directly with a rating > 98%". For that to work, the very first option has to be set to the third possibility, "custom barriers".

[Rodnox]

If you want to mark something as spam or as valid, go to the normal comments-page and mark them there with the newly added buttons.

Now THAT is definitely something you need to add in a little description message, that shows up when you just have installed the plugin. I would have never come up with the idea, that i have a new button now in a different menu. I'd have found it possible at some stage, but honestly, it's more likely that I'd have the plugin deleted before.

Great Idea, now I also understand how the plugin learns. Makes sense now.

The second and third option: Is there no description-text, or is it simply barely comprehensible? The plugin calculates a rating of the comment, between 0 and 100% spamminess, and with those options you are able to say "moderate all comments with a rating > 50%, delete all directly with a rating > 98%". For that to work, the very first option has to be set to the third possibility, "custom barriers".

"smpaminess" nice word creation. Now ... also very interesting way of placing certain comments directly in a spam box. But how does the plugin determain what spam-score (or spaminess) each comment has? Just from learning? Or does the plugin feed with an international spam list?

The text is there, but it doesn't explain much. I mean, how am I supposed to know what "
When in custom-mode, moderate at a rating of? (in %)" means? What rating? percent of what?

I'd write: "Each comment is classified by the plugin of it's potential to be spam. The higher the rating, the more likely it is spam. The spam-score is set by previous experience and classic spam contents. Choose the level from which on the comments will be moderated/rejected directly. 0% means 'No Spam', 100% means 'definitely spam' "


That would help. I'll try your plugin for a while. I've already added >40 spam comments within the last 24h. So far, the plugin seems to have learned, but the spam-creators are way more creative. Different IP's all the time, different content.

Can I suggest, that added spam contents will be sent to a server, where all added spam-comments from all s9y-blogs (containing your plugin) come together and also update each blog with the full list? Intermediately the plugin would learn within seconds and improve its efficiency enormously. Thats how emailservers work.

as I've said ... I'll try it for a while and let you know of future success (if so).

Greets
Rodney

[onli]

Thanks again for the additional feedback. Having a description apart from the plugin-description at the configuration isn't intended, though there is room to link a readme. I should add one.

But how does the plugin determain what spam-score (or spaminess) each comment has? Just from learning? Or does the plugin feed with an international spam list?

Just from learning. It uses the comments you give to it to build a local database with words which are present in spam and those which are present in valid comments.

Your suggestion already was suggested :) It's a logical approach to go that route, but it is also a way i don't want to go. Basically, that is what akismet already does, only even less decentralised. But the bayes-plugin shall fit perfectly to your blog. For example, on my blog i don't allow bbCode, and such, so almost every comment containing those pieces is spam. A central database would harm the effectiveness of the filter itself, though i admit it would help enormously in the beginning.

However, there already is a way to not start from scratch. In the database-menu, there is an export/import-function. If you import the database.csv from e.g. yellowled, the plugin will act as if it already learnt for a long time. You should be careful with this if you import across a language, on yellowleds blog almost all english comments were spam -> all english comments probably will at first be marked as spam on another blog importing those database.