Release Notes (5.5.5): Akismet Anti-Spam Solution

5.5.5 Release Notes: Akismet Anti-Spam Solution

As part of our next platform release (5.5.5 – scheduled for July 17th – early morning hours), we will be implementing a new 3rd-party spam prevention technology that specifically combats “content based” spam –  This system will look at a message’s written content in order to determine whether it should be posted within a KickApp’s community.

The company KickApps is using for this process is Akismet (http://akismet.com/) – Akismet was first built as a plugin for WordPress and has reported capturing over 25 billion spam comments as of April 2011. The technology detects spam at a rate of around 40 million comments/ per day and is now included by default in all WordPress builds since version 2.0.

On July 18th (early morning hours), KickApps will release this technology in a “beta” stage – limited only to initial posts within community blogs – we will be using Akismet for initially submitted blog entries only by non-admins (i.e. community members). Initially submitted blog entries by Web Masters, Editors, and Admins will be automatically approved without a call to Akismet. Only initial blog posts will be submitted to Akismet.

OVERVIEW: Before an initial blog post is made within a community it will be sent to Akismet.  They will  “authenticate” the validity of the post (based on a series of factors including; the IP of the poster, the recent spam activity that Akismet is monitoring in other communities, as well as the syntax of the message itself) – if Akismet determines the content message to be “non-spam” it will be successfully posted within the community.  If it fails their test – the blog entry will not be posted within the community. (NOTE:  If a “valid” blog post is inadvertently flagged by Akismet as spam, KickApps can assist the user in getting their message posted in the community.)

This validation process (noted above) happens in “real time”, all within a matter of seconds.  Additionally, this solution will be in place for all KickApp’s clients (including those clients utilizing API calls in order to make blog posts).

After this initial beta phase, KickApps will be looking to roll out Akismet to additional aspects of the platform (that have a commenting component) such as; profiles, videos, and photos.

NOTE:  This feature can be enabled by the webmaster under “CONFIGURE >> SETTINGS — ADD/ REMOVE APPS” in the Control Panel. By default the Akismet feature will be disabled within every community.

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Author: Peter DeCaro

Peter DeCaro is Director, Kit Social Product Management. His background spans over 17 years of customer, product and technical support expertise. Peter is available to assist with any technical support questions by contacting him via email, below.

E-mail: support@kickapps.com