TypePad's overactive spam filter
blueoregon admin
Just a quick administrative note: Yes, we're seeing all the comments from our readers letting us know that our spam filter seems to have gone into overdrive. We're working with TypePad (our blog host) to figure out the problem.
It seems that they made a major upgrade in the last week that's doing a much better job capturing spam - but it's also capturing many of your legitimate comments. (Frankly, we'd rather deal with false negatives than apologize for false positives, but TypePad runs millions of blogs - and they've apparently had it with spammers attacking their systems.)
Stay tuned. Thanks for your patience.
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1:34 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
For what it's worth, even when you're the author of a post, you have to go through this riggamarole--so it's not personal.
Dec 19, '07
It would be really nice if you would enable diaries and comment rating.
Dec 19, '07
It would be really nice if you would enable diaries and comment rating.
Dec 19, '07
It would be really nice if you would enable diaries and comment rating.
2:13 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Yup. I'm having to do the annoying captcha thing every time - and have even had a few comments flagged as 'spam' which clearly aren't!
2:19 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Yea, I saved my comment on the sales tax issue into Notepad and will just wait until things are fixed since it thinks I'm doing comment spam. ;)
Dec 19, '07
Yes, these constant verification demands, at times twice for a single message, are a royal pain in the ass.
3:03 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Tom:
On the sales tax item I can't even get past the verification. I input the letters, but it tells me it still can't post because it thinks it is comment spam.
3:49 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Apparently, comment length has something to do with it. I've been able to get by the "we think this is spam" by breaking my comments into pieces.
So do that, or be pithy.
Dec 19, '07
I had a comment here earlier. Typepad must have thought it was off topic.
Dec 19, '07
So it's just a coincidence that every posting from a Novick supporter is tagged as spam?
JOKE! IT'S A JOKE!!
4:53 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Nice, Paul! We need a little levity.
6:26 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
I have suggested it before, but you guys should really consider registration and accounts. This would prevent name-jacking and practically eliminates any span posts from being generated.
7:44 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
I'm now seeing a note about being held for review by the blog's author that seems new. Given our volume that would be huge burden.
My ISP offers different filtering levels for individual e-mails. Does/could typepad offer anything like that? They should. It doesn't seem as if it would be hard in principle to have an option where you just do the "read this" check but not have a content algorithm that might be biased against words relating to economics, business, social issues, policy etc.
Actually it seems like other blog services have exactly a system based on character recognition only.
Anyway, I hope typepad will be responsible to BlueOregon's owners as customers & thanks for your efforts.
8:25 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Well, as of 3:30 this afternoon:
We've made an update to the spam filter, so you should see improvement in the number of comments being caught incorrectly. Please let us know if you are still receiving a large number of false positives.
Now, there's a bunch of comments being held for us to review. This is going to be VERY annoying for both editors and commenters. Oh well.
8:56 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
Oh great.... Now that I'm approving a bunch of comments, it looks like we've got dozens of duplicates. Hang in there.
Dec 19, '07
Right. After months of having my IP address blocked you expect me to believe it's a Typepad issue. Please.
10:18 p.m.
Dec 19, '07
The problem that is occurring right now is completely due to a bug. All of us have run into the problem lately of having to input the captcha text. And then today none of our items would post. And of course we'd try to input the captcha text again or redo our text. And now there are a ton of duplicates that Kari has to go through.
Dec 19, '07
Lately? I was a regular poster at BO up until about ~4 months ago when I started receiving this message EVER SINCE:
An error occurred... Your comment has not been posted because we think it might be comment spam. If you believe you have received this message in error, please contact the author of this weblog.
However, TypePad indicates specifically that comment spam is controlled by the weblog author by blocking the IP address of the commenter.
I contacted Kari numerous times about this and he shrugged it off as a Typepad issue. Funny how I was stll able to comment at other Typepad blogs. BO has a bad rep in the blogosphere for blocking IP addresses. Ask Victoria Taft.
Dec 20, '07
Well, here's the notice from TypePad that they're having problems.
And yes, we do sometimes attempt to block commenters that routinely post racist, sexist, or violent material - or otherwise are bad actors, repeatedly posting off-topic stuff, making multiple repeated personal attacks, or engaging in widespread sockpuppetry.
I won't discuss specific cases. Just know that there are less than a dozen people who have been explicitly blocked.
Dec 20, '07
For reasons like that I would hope that you do, Kari. Check my posts, I don't have a record of that here. When I asked via email 4 months ago why I had been blocked you yourself said, "I don't have any freaking clue." Still, after trying every so often, I had no ability to comment until last night.
8:57 a.m.
Dec 20, '07
Go ahead Kari. Prove you weren't on the Grassy Knoll!
10:52 a.m.
Dec 20, '07
It's still happening as of 10:47 a.m. Dec. 20. Kari, do you want us to hold off resending if we get one of these?
I apologize for the multiple posts, didn't realize they would land in your lap as a hassle.
11:00 a.m.
Dec 20, '07
Yeah, don't repost. I've added a note to the comment form to that effect.
12:05 p.m.
Dec 20, '07
LOL, touché.
Dec 22, '07
To my friend Steve Maurer- I paraphrase a quote from Woody Allen: "Yeth, pithy." (from "Bananas", I believe...)