Getting flagged as spam by akismet

Tikiyetti

Hi there, I'm trying to post a technical question in the OpenVPN section but my post keeps getting flagged as spam. I've successfully posted before, albeit not that much, so I don't understand why all of a sudden I'm getting this issue?

Tikiyetti

Thanks for the upvote. Just tried posting again just now but still no luck. I've seen some posts say that long text might get flagged as spam so I trimmed my post down as much as possible without making it too vague and still no dice. :(

johnpoz

You need to be at rep 5 I believe to get some less filtering. Your only at 2.. Can you just put up the wall of text on pastebin for example and then just link to that?

Tikiyetti

@johnpoz Yeah, sure thing. And you mean post it to the actual forum section (OpenVPN) right? Not this one. And will it let me post even just a link since it's to do with my rep score instead of the content of my post?

johnpoz

How akismet figures out spam or not is kind of a mystery - believe me I have asked the powers that be ;)

It misses stuff that is clearly spam ALL the time.. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff have to delete pretty much daily if not hourly ;)

And then it might flag a few words without any links as spam.. I don't get it really - might as well be throwing darts blindfolded after you have beer bonged a growler and spun around in chair 100 times..

I can always post your wall of text for you - if you can get me the text you want in your post on say pastebin.

Bob.Dig

It is spam because it is not posted there.

Tikiyetti

lol, how infuriating. Well I really appreciate all the upvotes to get my rep up. I just tried posting again and it still doesn't take it so perhaps it does have something to do with my post's content (just a few lines of text, 2 pictures, and 2 hyperlinks at this point).

I'll make a pastebin and post the link to see if that changes anything. Thanks a ton for the help. :)

johnpoz

@bob-dig good point - moved this topic..

Tikiyetti

Ayy it worked! (without pastebin). Maybe it just took some time for Akismet to "learn" or reindex my account. Anyway, now I can start working on my actual issue XD. But seriously, thank you.

packetpirate

I am having the same issue. Please give me thumbs up here so I can avoid the spam filter. Thanks!

Crusher Bob

Test message with new account

Dennis100

I too am having the same problem. Please upvote me.

areckethennu

Same issue. I've got a post that's purely text (34 lines) and it won't let me post it. I didn't think my previous 45 posts were THAT bad. It's odd that my reputation is 0, but I've got 9 upvotes. I don't see anything bad in my profile at all.

johnpoz

@areckethennu I don't see any posts of your that have been up voted, I see some that you have upvoted - but those do not count for your rep.

I just upvoted this post of your - and I show you have 1 rep point now.

areckethennu

@johnpoz I'm currently at a reputation of 3 and it still won't let me post. If I've figured out how to use it right, here's a pastebin of what I'm trying to ask in the IPv6 forum:

https://pastebin.com/LZAwWycY

For the life of me, I can't see anything remotely spam-like in that.

johnpoz

@areckethennu said in Getting flagged as spam by akismet:

https://pastebin.com/LZAwWycY

That is a lot of text - akismet can be very finicky, and I have asked the admins multiple times for info that can be seen on why something is blocked, or how to whitelist etc.. - and what they can do is very very limited. As just a mod I have no anything with akismet.. Nothing no reports, no listings, no interface of any kind, etc..

From my understanding you don't get any boost in akismet until you have at least 5 reps.. I have given you another rep, and look over other posts and gave you another one so your at 5 now..

edit: give it another try.

areckethennu

@johnpoz I confirm my rep is up to 5. But, it still won't let me start a new thread with that content. Let me see if I can post any kind of reply in another thread I'd previously started.

areckethennu

@johnpoz OK. It finally worked. I replied in one of my other threads, then went back and tried posting that new thread. I guess I just had to push those electrons over the top of the Rep = 5 bump. Thanks for the help.

missionit.tech

Im having this problem

stephenw10

You should be good now.

Steve

eosterholm

This post is deleted!

hunghcm

@dennis100 i have same problem, now i must login by fake IP.

stephenw10

If changing your IP is allowing it then your real address has probably been blacklisted for some reason. If it's a dynamic address then just reconnect to change it.

Steve

pourts

Having same problem w/ Akismet.

And the funny thing is I can't change my IP address because I am coming on the forum to ask for help with my VPN client running on pfsense!

catch 22

Anywho... this akismet spam filter seems to be way way to strong. I'm not sure how its optimized but it feels like its flagging lots of false positives right now.

johnpoz

@pourts said in Getting flagged as spam by akismet:

I can't change my IP address because

How about coming in from your phone? The one thing I wish we could do with akismet is whitelist IPs or a user account would even be more helpful.. There isn't a lot of reason to why it blocks something either, from my understanding there is no log of blocks - which would be really helpful.. User X blocked because score of 42 with this breakdown. Kind of like some spam filters when they filter mail..

You would think it could figure out that wall of text coming in from some SPAM heavy country would get flagged, from a 1 post wonder - yet those get through quite often.

edit: btw I see from your IP history, that one of the IPs is listed on a block spam list..

edit2: make that another one of your IPs has a huge reporting of on the spam list, reported a LOT!! PM me if you want the details of which IPs are listed on the block spam list.

edit3: wow, so from your history you have an IP that changes last octet, .56, 57 and 58 - all three of these have huge amount of reports on the block spam list.

pourts

@johnpoz
I found a workaround, its just tedious.

I hope Akismet is saving the mods tons of time and headache. From the perspective of a user I think it is a huge pain in the ass. Is this something forced on the mods from Netgate corporate?

johnpoz

@pourts looking at your IPs - most of them are on the spam block list, with multiple reports.. Looks to me coming from some vpn service, the IP block is owned by a CDN service.. Not some typical ISP..

pourts

@johnpoz
Would you be interested in taking a look at my thread here?: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/174683/openvpn-client-working-but-other-ports-vlans-now-offline/10?_=1663707824757

I am running a VPN client on my Netgate 2100 on LAN port #1. For some reason I am unable to get out to the internet directly (no VPN) on the other 3 ports.

Side question: who decides what the spam reporting process is for VPNs? What is stopping a VPN company from posting lots of fake reports against their competitor's IP addresses?

johnpoz

@pourts as to who reports spam.. I would assume you could false report.. But from looking at the reports they are from all over. So either the person or company planting false reports is taking the effort to report them from all over the place ;) Or legit spam is taking place and being reported by the forum operators..

edit: example - these are 2 of your IPs you have come from.. Not like they have 1 report ;)

And the .58 also listed in your history has multiple as well, just not as many as these when I sorted by reports..

With your ips being listed on the spam report list, it is no wonder akismet is flagging your posts..

pourts

@johnpoz
Interesting. Thanks for helping build my knowledge. Time to stop paying for a garbage VPN.

Are these reports specific to "forum operators"? You used that term earlier. I ask because my IPs seems to work fine everywhere else, for instance Twitter (where there is a huge bot problem now that you mention it...).

johnpoz

@pourts yeah a list I "believe" or one at least of the ones akismet uses is a list for forum operators to report spam

https://stopforumspam.com/

The true inter workings of akismet is a bit of mystery from my understanding. But this list is made of ips that are reported by forum operators..

I responded to your other thread btw giving example of how to policy route.

stephenw10

Yup, unfortunately the akismet plugin for nodebb has almost no visibility or tuning options. In other forum software there is far more. Hopefully that might improve.