1274762 - Edit detected as spam, blocking an update on https://developer.mozilla.org/fr/docs/Web/CSS/linear-gradient

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Editing, defect)

Description

[Julien G]

What did you do?
================
1. Went on https://developer.mozilla.org/fr/docs/Web/CSS/linear-gradient$edit to update the fr version of the article
2. Modified the content and tags accordingly
3. Saved

What happened?
==============
I received a warning box and Akismet added two spam attempts for this edits.

What should have happened?
==========================
As the content I've added seems to suit MDN guidelines, the save should have worked :(

Is there anything else we should know?
======================================
I marked the spam attempts as ham in the panel and tried several times without any luck.

The content I'm trying to save is here: https://pastebin.mozilla.org/8872420

Comment 1

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

You know, I wish we could see an explanation for why an edit was rejected. Is that possible?

Comment 2

[John Whitlock [:jwhitlock]]

The edit is blocked because Akismet's spam detection algorithms think it contains spam.  The return we get from check_comment is binary: Yes, it should be blocked, or No, let it pass. There are no APIs to get more details about the why of blocking. Based on what I know of machine learning and content filters, it may not be possible to get more information, or at least in a form that would be useful to us.

I've sent an email to our Akismet representative, to see if he has any insights. Maybe he does have access to more data, and would be willing to share it. Or, can give us some advise on what we're doing wrong.

Looking at the content, it does have some features that I've seen in other blocked edits:

* Multiple links to external websites
* Multiple links to the same external domain
* Embedded non-HTML content (CSS in this case, other edits had JavaScript)
* Non-English content (sorry, still seems to push the spam algorithms toward suspicion)

Training seems to help, but is not immediate. Five minutes appears to be not enough time. According to bug 1273047, 6 days is enough. The real value is somewhere in between, and I suspect it changes based on the load to Akismet's servers.

Julien, I've taken the additional step of adding the trusted Akismet flag to your account. I want to see if this overrides whatever is blocking your edits. Can you please try again?

Comment 3

[Julien G]

Thanks John, https://developer.mozilla.org/fr/docs/Web/CSS/linear-gradient$revision/1062828 is OK.
Should I close the bug for now or do you want to analyze something else?

Comment 4

[Julien G]

(Forgot to clear the ni)

Comment 5

[John Whitlock [:jwhitlock]]

Our Akismet representative is working on decreasing the time from training on Ham to similar edits being allowed.  I'm following up via email, but the site has had a smaller number of blocked edits (ham and spam) and missed spam since then. This is good for MDN, bad for debugging.

Closing this bug, since the immediate issue is resolved. I'll continue monitoring blocked ham with the Akismet rep.