Frustrating Spam Filter Issues Continue...

Since blogger's spam filter cannot be turned off but has been nothing but a disruption on my blog, I went onto the blogger forum to explore options and lodge complaints. The recurring message is that everyone who is part of blogger needs to help "train" the spam filter by correcting its mistakes--by marking misidentified messages in the spam box as "Not Spam." Here is the message I posted in relation to this:

If disabling the filter isn't an option, I'd like to help "train" the filter--which has blocked dozens and dozens of legitimate comments on my blog (and one lonely piece of actual spam, while letting some spam through).


But the problem with "training" it is this: My regular commenters are often engaged in lively ongoing philosophical discussions sparked by my post, discussions which are going on during a period when I am away from the blog and can't sit at the spam filter to hit "Not Spam" every time the filter makes a mistakes (and, in my case, its error rate approches 100%--that is, virtually EVERYTHING it regards as spam is not).

Because my commenters are energetically discussing issues they are passionate about, when their comment disappears they try again. In fact, they keep trying until they find a version that passes the spam filter. By the time I check the filter, there can be up to 20 legitimate comments that were blocked.

But here's where things get tricky. If I mark them all as "Not Spam," they all get published, cluttering up my comments page with redundant and out-of-order comments that disrupt the capacity of readers to follow the conversation that has been evolving. So I find myself wasting precious time comparing what is in the spam filter with what got through, to see if I can identify comments that didn't eventually make it through and only marking THEM as "Not Spam." Sometimes--being a busy person--I just don't hae the time for that. But even when I do, this is such a selective effort that it is hardly going to educate the spam filter properly.

To properly "train the filter" by letting it know every time it makes a mistake, I need to make the comments page an incoherent mess. But if I don't train it, my commenters will continue to face the frustration of having to fight to figure out how to be part of the conversation. Either way, everybody on my blog loses. As far as I am concerned, this filter has been a disaster (perhaps because spam was never really a problem on my blog and continues to be a trivial issue). Any suggestion about how to train the filter to be less disruptive without the training process being disruptive would be more than welcome.

So that's what I wrote, which may or may not get a response. In the meantime, let me ask all of you who regularly comment on my blog what you would prefer. Here are several options: I could go through and mark every one of your filtered comments as "not spam," resulting in a sudden glut of comments cluttering up comment threads on many posts. This would be a messy option but might help teach the filter more quickly and reduce future problems. (I might then go through and delete every comment that just got posted to clean up the mess--but I'm not sure what that would teach the spam filter, since it may be programmed to learn from what bloggers delete).

Alternatively, I could continue with my current policy (and try to be better about checking the filter's spam box regularly). This could mean a slower learning curve for the filter and ongoing frustration of the sort you've been dealing with, but wouldn't turn the comments page into a mess.

Or we could all agree for the next week or so not to attempt reposting when the filter is blocked, and I will try to check the spam box at least once in the morning and once in the evening (except weekends, when I can't promise to make it online)--and mark all comments as "Not Spam" (unless I actually start getting real spam...). This will slow down the pace of conversations, making them partly dependent on my sporadic moderation--but we might find out whether this teaches the filter, leading to a diminishing need for moderation.

Or are there other options people can think of?

Overactive Spam Filter

I want to apologize on behalf of the so-called "spam filter" that blogger has installed and that I can find no way to disable. It has been overactive recently--and since I have been busy grading, I've forgotten to check it's work. This morning it suddenly occured to me to look at what was in the spam box--and I found that a dozen legitimate comments had been directed there instead of being posted (whereas NOTHING that qualified as actual spam was there). There was too much, scattered over too many posts, for me to go back and check for each misdirected comment whether the commenter had finally succeeded in getting a version of the comment up. I did find a few such cases, which are hopefully now posted. And I prioritized posts from newer participants simply because the spam filter is supposed to "learn" from its mistakes--if it's been told before (by me) that you're not a spammer, it's less likely to treat your comment as spam in the future (but still will do so occasionally for inexplicable reasons).