[packzap]

Lately, since the first of the year, Akismet has occasionally been flagging valid replies (posts) and topics as Spam. Thus, not publishing the posts until I manually go in and “unspam” them. These false positives are very frustrating. It is doing this to people that have posted in my bbPress forum for years. What gives?

I am running WordPress 5.32, bbPress 2.64 and no changes to the Twenty-Fourteen theme in years.

In Akismet, I only see settings to basically run, or disconnect. I am tempted to do the latter.

[packzap]

I had to disable Akismet unfortunately, due to the large rash of posts it was flagging falsely as spam.

[stracy2]

I too am having too many bbPress topics/replies marked as spam.

It looks like any post that has an HTML url is automatically marked as spam. Is there some way to make bbPress/Akisment integration more intelligent?

[cassel]

I was coming to post the same thing. I am not sure what common denominator those posts have, but posters get annoyed when their post disappears (even mine, on occasion). I didn’t think it was Akismet though as real spam posts ARE left posted!

[Robin W]

it is REALLY hard to get a computer to distinguish between real stuff and spam.

This support site uses askimet, but 3-5 spam posts get through each day. many just copy content and add their own url.

my strategy is

1. spam will get through, so unless your bbpress is massively used I use https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress-notify-nospam/ to notify me of each post and reply. I can quickly look at it, and if needed delete.
2. I also use https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/moderation-tools-for-bbpress/ that way the topic or reply does not ‘disappear’ the author sees it as pending, and you get an email so you know to take action.

[cassel]

I do get a few spams but not many. And typically, one member will email me if I didn`t see it, but since I get a notification of all the posts and all the new topics, I usually catch them. My main issue is mostly for those legit posts that end up in the spam. I get the notification they were posted, but not that they were flagged as spam, so I have no way to know to go check in the backend to “un-spam” them.

2. I also use https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/moderation-tools-for-bbpress/ that way the topic or reply does not ‘disappear’ the author sees it as pending, and you get an email so you know to take action.

This plugin might no longer be supported, it seems.

[Robin W]

this is one of the good and bad things about WordPress plugins.

It is good that they warn you that plugins have not been updated for a long period.

It is bad that it puts people off using perfectly good plugins because the author has had the goodness to release for free useful code to the world, but does not have the time or wish to be involved in supporting it.

But a well written plugin rarely needs changing if it does all that is required.

And since moderation tools hooks to bbpress functions that are long standing and stable, there are no issues I know with this plugin and I suspect it will work for years to come. If it breaks though minor issues, I’d clone it and re-issue.

You can sort of consider the warning a bit like a warranty. You don’t stop using the dishwasher because the year long warranty has run out, you just accept that maybe one day in the future it will stop working. When it does, then you may need to stop using it, but you do not go back to hand washing your dishes just because the warranty has run out on the dishwasher 🙂

If moderation tools stops working, you are no worse off than now. so if you use it for a while and it makes life easier, then that is a bonus.

[cassel]

I agree with you. It would be nice if someone would double-check those plugins and update the mention on WP to avoid those warnings, especially if the plugins are well built and should still work without issues.