[thdc]

I'm missing the part on how op determines valid users for the frustration loop.

> Enter Akismet... Blocking spam on signup worked somewhat, but was easily circumventable

> some spammers found ways to parade as legitimate blogs... which I would have to manually sniff out and flag.

> This lead me to an idea: The Frustration Loop... When spam is detected... Waste their time and make them give up.

> "Now hold up there Herman! Won't this be triggered by valid users?"... it's been running in production for the past 3 months and I've only had one user report this as an issue.

imo that would be the most interesting part of the article. It's cool that the action that's being taken is to frustrate the spammer but I wished there was more info on separating spammers from real users, figuring out false positives and false negatives and the like. I understand that giving details on detection is probably not a good idea and that the article is about The Frustration Loop, though.

[rescripting]

They pay for Akismet and run the users signup info through it. You can see the kind of data they send to them in the GIF on the post. If Akismet says yes, this is spam, then engage the frustration loop. I thought it was clever.

[thdc]

Yep, but op also mentioned spammers that get through signup without being flagged and having to go and manually flag them.

My thoughts on the loop overall are:

- maybe users are false flagged but not complaining because the "bugs" are rare enough

- spammers with automation may brute force through the "bugs"

- handles manual spammers well because they will encounter the "bugs" more often and just leave; or they'll report it as an issue that you may have to look into.

To draw a comparison with my own experiences, I have to jump through hoops when I visit sites with bot detection or other related security measures. I am the normal user being flagged as a spammer being frustration looped in this case.

[kyle-rb]

Does Akismet detect spammers when they sign up?

afaik its main feature is an API to detect whether a given comment is spam: https://akismet.com/developers/comment-check/

[ncruces]

My guess? Akismet is metered, and he submits only the first few posts to lower costs. Once you have some reputation, you can post anything.

So spammers noticed being blocked on account 1, created account 2 with legitimate content, and then started spamming.

New process is detecting spammers on first post but instead of immediately sending them away (or throwing their content into the void), go to some length to pretend the website irreparably broken in subtle ways.

The point is to waste their time before they realise they've been flagged, and have them give up.

[thdc]

I assumed that the two paragraphs were connected

> Enter Akismet. This is a spam detection tool by the Wordpress people and is pretty accurate and easy to use.

> Blocking spam on signup worked somewhat, but was easily circumventable by spammers who are well versed in dealing with these kinds of barriers.

But now that I look at Akismet's description, it sounds like Akismet does a lot more than block on signup. Perhaps they use it after signups but apply the frustration loop instead of blocks because it's less accurate there.

[chefandy]

In the gif, the user already has a login and is attempting to make a post. I imagine either the user gets flagged as a spammer or each individual post might.

[boneitis]

> I understand that giving details on detection is probably not a good idea and that the article is about The Frustration Loop, though.

That's the thing. It feels like no one wants to solve the problem; it will only hurt metrics and profits, I've already figured at this point /shrug