Akismet needs a better way of verifying spam from mistakes [#115905]

I have just tried Akismet on a Drupal installation, and find that it makes posting comments very slow. I have it installed on all my WordPress websites, and do not have this problem.

Is it possible that clicking the submit comment button causes the module to access the Akismet server before allowing the user to progress to the next step? Since my comments need approval, I would prefer to see a more responsive system where the user progresses to the next page immediately, and the Akismet server is contacted in parallel.

Is there any way to improve the user commenting experience when Akismet is running?

Comments

Comment #1

dsamuel commented 28 February 2007 at 17:46

After three weeks without a response, I am wondering if this request to find out why Askimet slows down commenting was missed by those who may be able to make suggestions or fix the problem?

So far I have not had a spam problem, but I know from my WordPress sites that spam can hit suddenly in a big way.

Is anyone else having the same problem I am (see original description of problem)? Is there a way of fixing this?

Comment #2

tazandpig commented 14 March 2007 at 10:40

I also noticed the slowdown.

Akismet is a great service, but as this plugin stands at the moment, there's enough of a slowdown for me to make me not use it.

Perhaps it's related to my own config, but seeing this support topic makes me think otherwise.

Anyone have any opinion on what the problem may be?

Comment #3

dsamuel commented 15 March 2007 at 18:45

Title:

Akisment makes submitting comments very slow

» Akisment needs a better way of verifying spam from mistakes

My allergy information website started getting deluged with spam, so I turned Akisment back on. I found that it is diffuclut to sort through comments.

WordPress has a better system. It shows the complete text of each comment, with options next to each comment to leave it, delete it, or unspam it. One button takes care of the rest, when you are done marking the comments. Or you can scan all of them, and without marking anything, just delete them all (I can scan 50 spam messages in 10 or 15 seconds - almost always delete all of them).

With Drupal, you have to click on each one, look at it, click to delete, then go on to the next one, waiting each step of the way.

I am having better luck with Captcha and Spam

I see this module as a great proof of concept, but not quite there yet in terms of usability. Even a separate list of non-spam comments would help, so they could be approved right away before wading through the spam.

Comment #4

egomac commented 10 January 2008 at 02:07

When I checked the code (specifically the '_akismet_api_http_post' function), it uses the old fsockopen to connect to Akismet's API. Changing this to cURL will definitely improve its performance.