---
title: "we have an akismet piper down!"
date: 2006-08-27T14:04:39-04:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2006/08/27/akismet-down/
author: Les Orchard
tags: [asides, wordpress, metablogging, akismet, spam, beansandspam]
---

# we have an akismet piper down!

<blockquote cite="http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/08/26/is-akismet-down/">I’ve grown so used to the awesome spam blocker that Wordpress.com includes for free (it comes from Akismet, which is owned by Automattic, the same folks who do Wordpress).  But tonight a TON of spam got through. So, I wonder if Akismet is down or if something got horked?</blockquote><div class="quotesource">Source: <a href="http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/08/26/is-akismet-down/">Is Akismet down? « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger</a></div>

I guess I've just been taking Akismet for granted, since I've only seen comment spam in the dozen-per-day range.  Now I'm up to dozen-per-minute, some days.  I've just tossed in a few bandaid solutions, so we'll see what happens.  Things like this really make me wish I had magic powers to go find the spammers and apply [Chinese water torture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture) using bits of processed meat.

<div id="comments" class="comments archived-comments">
            <h3>Archived Comments</h3>
            
        <ul class="comments">
            
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221086550">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://photomatt.net/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=767fc9c115a1b989744c755db47feb60&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://photomatt.net/">Matt</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221086550" class="permalink"><time datetime="2006-08-27T21:10:14">2006-08-27T21:10:14</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content"><p>Hopefully you can go back to taking it for granted now, sorry for the problems this morning. I posted some more details about it to the Akismet blog.</p></div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221086551">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.decafbad.com"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=2377f34a68801b861c3e54e1301f0dce&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.decafbad.com">l.m.orchard</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221086551" class="permalink"><time datetime="2006-08-27T21:23:21">2006-08-27T21:23:21</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content"><p>Matt:  I think, if anything, this told me how effective the Akismet service has been at keeping me from realizing how bad comment spam has been getting!  :)  I don't envy the job you've taken on.</p></div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221086552">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.whump.com/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=152a649080e99c313ecae9a34c60d11d&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.whump.com/">Bill Humphries</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221086552" class="permalink"><time datetime="2006-08-27T21:39:15">2006-08-27T21:39:15</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content"><p>Cyn and I didn't know that it was down until she read Scoble. We got back early this morning and (as nerd couples do) checked our email to find a whole mess of comment spam on our blogs. We've installed Bad Behavior to backstop Akismet.</p></div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221086553">
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                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://gfmorris.net/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=505e3b39dcea29b3ded74a5494c493eb&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://gfmorris.net/">Geof F. Morris</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221086553" class="permalink"><time datetime="2006-08-27T23:27:30">2006-08-27T23:27:30</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content"><p>If you want a belt to go with those suspenders, I'm a big fan of <a href="http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/" rel="nofollow">Spam Karma</a>.  [So much so that I don't even use Akismet.]  Hope this helps, Les!</p></div>
            
        </li>
    
        </ul>
    
        </div>