Is it just me, or does it seem like excitement in the tech industry and the blogging arena come in spurts? I feel like we were on a good run there for quite a while, and now there’s just… nothing.
Oh, and you know, I’ve never typed “Lull” before… It’s one of those words that just doesn’t look like it’s ever spelled right. Wait… is it?
The only real thing of any significant interest to me lately has been Akismet, the blog SPAM-blocking service designed by Matt Mullenweg and integrated into WordPress.com. I really wanted to do a more in-depth commentary on Akismet, since there are several things I don’t like about it, and several things I just don’t understand all-together about it, but I guess there’s no time like the present, right?
AkismetMy first question is this: Why does it require a WordPress.com invite?
I can see where you’d want to have a somewhat limited “open beta” (so-to-speak) for a service that will generate this much traffic, but I’m not seeing why you would want to integrate that into another invitation-only system.
Let’s look at it this way: You have to have a WordPress.com account (read: blog) to use Akismet (since that’s where you get your Akismet API key). That means that you already have a blog protected by Akismet (the WordPress.com-hosted one). So really the people getting WP.com invites to use Akismet obviously have no prior interest in WP.com. Now they’re just clogging up the WP.com invite-only system and “wasting” invites that could be given to people who actually want a blog, simply so they can get their hands on an Akismet API key.
Do you follow my logic here? I think it just would have made a lot more sense if we’d maintained two seperate programs for these services. I don’t think signing up for one or the other should inherently require a membership to its counterpart, but that’s just me…
My second question is: Who wrote this WordPress plugin? I don’t even think this qualifies as being non-feature-rich. This is like the stone knives and bear skins of WP plugins.
Don’t you think it would be at least somewhat helpful if the comment that has been moderated were, oh I don’t know, actually displayed? Isn’t the content a tad bit of a key point behind determining whether something really and truly is SPAM or not?
I guess the last thing I had to say was a request: How about private black / white lists? Seems to me it only makes sense. Joe says nasty things to me, so I don’t like Joe. He’s not SPAMing (per se), but I don’t want his comments anymore. Of course I have this exact same complaing about the Cloudmark Desktop that I use to filter my email SPAM… I guess they figure some things should be handled externally from their app, since they’ve been around for years and have yet to add these.
Oh, one more thing. Where are my email notifications? I think I should still get an email when I get a comment, even if it’s blocked by Akismet. Otherwise, I never know that some potentially non-SPAM message is sitting in my moderation queue, ticking ever slowly closer to auto-deletion.
What say you, WordPress users? Anyone else that reads my blog using Akismet yet?
For those that are wondering, our comments here are being protected by Akismet. Thus far, it’s blocked about 40 crap messages from ever making it to the built-in moderation functions (which have been catching it all so far anyway). Sure it has some rough edges, but there’s some kick-ass stuff at the heart of this service.
1. to attract new users to try out WordPress.com so they can be billed.
1a. Billing is coming.
2. it’s already setup there, makes sense to only have to manage one point of contact in a one Matt show. Okay there is Donncha, but he’s mostly MU.
3. it diversifies the services WordPress.com provides without excessively complicating it.
4. anyone can download Flock and get an “invite”
4a. more diversification. i believe flock paid good money to be on the homepage ($100k rumour)
5. Matt wrote it using a little bit of code from ChrisJDavis and someone else, the rest is all new. This info is out there.
6. displayed? yes. who the fuck knows what is and isn’t spam unless you read it. and even then some of it you think isn’t, actually is. case in point
http://neuraxon77.wordpress.com/2005/10/28/akismet-vs-ernisio/
7. private blacklists/whitelists, are your problem. screw you. can I get put on the blacklist now? thanks.
8. akismet eats email notifications.
http://neuraxon77.wordpress.com/2005/10/28/akismet-vs-craig/
8a. I think it’s appetite is lessening. I received a comment today, I think. Or was it yesterday?
9. my mind is screwed.
9a. but I still seem to recall all this useless shit.
10. More crap because I like even numbers.
Oh fuck. I forgot the Lull.
I just got an invite to the Squidoo beta. Just then. Seriously. It popped up. I’m off to abuse it soon. :D Complain and bitch a lot. Because I doubt I’ll be wowed. But it could happen right?
Just like Microsoft wowed recently.
Start.com I mean Live.com DHTML Gadgets I mean Widgets? Err whatever. Will boom soon. Like Konfabulator for websites. I’m semi dreading this. Microsoft’s GadgetGallery has grown 2 fold in 1 day.
They should have called them pods.
That works better when I integrate them into my podspaces namespace.
Plants a pod.
I’ve just installed my ideapod virus here.
Apologies for the Seth pun. It was intended.
Akismet is too paranoid!
I have Akismet installed for about two weeks now and so far 4 out of 6 comments that it caught were NOT SPAM. That is 66.6% wrong judgement by Akismet which I consider inappropriate and therefore I decide that I will not use Akismet from now on until …