One of our favorite additions to Akismet 3.0 is the new discard setting. Previously, our plugin featured an option that allowed site owners the ability to automatically discard spam on older posts. But, as some may certainly agree, it was rather confusing and had little effect on the world’s smarter spammers.
After giving thought to how we could improve that particular setting and the overall user experience, we found that approximately 80% of spam could be flagged as “pervasive”, meaning that it is the absolute worst of the worst (of the worst!). In fact, that 80% is so bad that there is simply no benefit in paying any attention to it at all. Not even for kicks and giggles. Trust us.
We came up with something that would allow you to automatically and silently discard all of that pervasive spam attacking your site so that it never even appears in your “Spam” folder. The new setting identifies the worst and most pervasive spam (which can certainly change over time) on our side during the comment check and will immediately discard it if you’ve configured the plugin to do so.
If you’re new to Akismet, these spam comments will be stored by default; you must activate the new feature from the plugin’s configuration page (if you upgraded to 3.0, Akismet will use the previous value of your 30‑day discard setting) :
It’s all very ninja‑esque, we think. What’s more, enabling the feature can result in significant reductions in your storage and resource usage requirements.
This is a great step forward in our mission to make the web a cleaner place. We tested the feature on WordPress.com and received excellent results and feedback prior to rolling it into the plugin. So, we think (and hope) you’ll enjoy it. We are also working on an enhancement to the feature, which will highlight the pervasive spam comments in the “Spam” folder for users who choose to store them.
If you have any feedback on the new feature, we would love to hear from you.
Akismet 