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Today is Spam Filter Free Day

Saturday the 15th is Spam Filter Free Day here at justaddwater.dk. Why would we ever want to do something like that you ask? Well up until recently we received about 2-3000 spam comments each day so we thought we would draw attention to the wasted bandwidth, time and energy that all these spam comments consume. Not to speak of the large amount of hours with manually filtering all comments that our different spam filtering techniques free us from.

When we announced the Spam Filter Free Day 18 days ago, we didn’t think that it would draw so much attention. But the amount of comments and buzz around the blogosphere have been really overwhelming. Most notably is that we caught the attention of the comment-spam fighting company of all times: Akismet.

We also recieved our share of warnings from people telling us that this might not be such a good idea after all. I would like to say up front, that we really appreciate this and that we are wiser even now then before the announcement, but we just can’t resist going ahead with the experiment – We might learn even more!

In the next couple of minutes, we’ll remove our barricades, turn the other cheek and just sit, wait, see and learn.

Final remarks:

  1. If you post any legit comment on our blog within the next 24 hours we’ll try not to delete it when we do our manual spam-cleanup – but let me just apologize up front if we do.
  2. If you subscribe to our comment-feed, you might notice more comments then usual ;)

Related reading:

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This entry was posted by Thomas Watson Steen on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 00:29 (GMT-1) and is filed under Blogging, justaddwater.dk, spam, WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

66 Responses to “Today is Spam Filter Free Day”

  1. UK Contract Hire Says:
    October 11th, 2008 at 16:45 (GMT-1)

    Great experiment! I have found askimet to be a bit over-cautious, can be a good thing, can be a bad thing. I ended up installing it as I the amount of rubbish built up, didn’t want to because of the problems it can cause for legitimate bloggers. Now I just need to some kind of protection it on my normal comment forms but I’m worried about it catching real enquiries.

  2. Sam Says:
    October 18th, 2008 at 16:46 (GMT-1)

    I think the problem will be that you’re been listed in a do follow blog listing which has then simply left everyone coming out to attack you with rubbish comments.

    It happened to our site which is quite small but basically destroyed the workings of our blog as people couldn’t actually follow any of the conversations.

    Working in academia its easy to limit it to university only entries but I’m concerned we just shut the genuine people out…

  3. Seattle Dude Says:
    November 9th, 2008 at 01:20 (GMT-1)

    Wow, that’s an interesting experiment… I thought about doing that on my site as well, but then decided to disable comments all together to save my precious time…

  4. Paul Says:
    November 9th, 2008 at 07:25 (GMT-1)

    I commend you for your bravery! At least there are plenty of comments here (and not all spam!)

  5. Ivan Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 03:18 (GMT-1)

    Well that created a buzz didn’t it :D What a response.

  6. Danny Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 12:20 (GMT-1)

    So how did your spam free day went on. Must have been a day full of comments.

  7. Amelia Earhardt Says:
    November 16th, 2008 at 09:14 (GMT-1)

    ah then i will be spamming your blog then :D ahhahaah joking…

  8. Acai Berry Says:
    November 18th, 2008 at 05:11 (GMT-1)

    There is way too much spam on blogs nowdays. Its very hard to determine which is spam and which is relevant to the post. Most blog spam is merely keywords in a weird non humanism fashion. Some can be harder to spot.

    Either way, an interesting test.

  9. Jual Rumah Says:
    December 3rd, 2008 at 16:33 (GMT-1)

    I know that filtering 3000 comments a day is really exhausting work but I think using Akismet for judging most all the comment as a spam is really no good. Since, not all comment are spam. maybe you should find some crews to filter comment manually for saving your time.

  10. Free digital photography sites Says:
    December 5th, 2008 at 13:30 (GMT-1)

    I love the monty python video for spam alot. Goes well with the spam free post.

  11. Computer How To Says:
    December 8th, 2008 at 23:50 (GMT-1)

    Wow a spam filter free day! This is pretty neat. I only get aroudn 100 spam hits a day, cant imagine 3K. I really fee for ya guys!

  12. mike costoev Says:
    March 4th, 2009 at 18:46 (GMT-1)

    pretty cool idea. a nice way to manage spam. i get my fair share too, you know.

  13. Mike Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 22:05 (GMT-1)

    Hi Thomas,

    I think I know why you get that many spam comments. Check this out: http://www.smmguru.com/1114-sortable-do-follow-blogs-with-pagerank

    Mike

  14. Cubic zirconia Says:
    May 14th, 2009 at 08:25 (GMT-1)

    HI Thomas, seems I am late and really miss something. But I have admit that the concept of Spam Filter Free Day do amuse me so much. Anyway, as requested, contribute my share to make just another one.

    -Tim

  15. Ryan v. Says:
    June 25th, 2009 at 22:38 (GMT-1)

    Hah nothing worse then signing in wordpress only to have 1000 spam comments waiting to be approved.

  16. louie jerome Says:
    August 4th, 2009 at 00:32 (GMT-1)

    It’s amazing how many spam emails are waiting at the gates for you to open them when you have spam filter free day. 1111 spams to delete in 2 hours is huge! I don’t use a spam filter on any of my sites but maybe I should.