Why do I get email notifications about comments that Wordpress has already determined are spam?

I have a wordpress.org blog that I host on my own site. I have the Akismet plugin installed, and in general I keep both up-to-date (e.g. at the moment, Akismet is at version 2.5.7, and Wordpress at 3.5.1).

From time-to-time (maybe every week or so), I get a notification email from Wordpress that a (generally spam) comment needs moderating. When I log in to moderate it, Wordpress informs me that it has already been marked as spam (although I haven't marked it so, but I assume Wordpress means that Akismet has determined that). In this case, why do I get the notification email in the first place? Is Akismet failing to connect to the Akismet service, notifying me, and retrying later? If so, is it possible to turn off the initial notification email in this case? It's irritating to log in to moderate something only to discover Wordpress already knows the answer!

Topic akismet comments spam Wordpress

Category Web

1
answered at

Disclaimer: I wrote parts of the Akismet WordPress plugin, though not the parts in question here.

Is Akismet failing to connect to the Akismet service, notifying me, and retrying later?

Yes, this is exactly what happens. If Akismet doesn't get a valid response from the servers, it reschedules the check for 20 minutes in the future. In the meantime the post is considered held for moderation, since its actual status (ham or spam) is yet undetermined.

If so, is it possible to turn off the initial notification email in this case?

I regret that I don't know of any good way to do this for only this circumstance. But I have never had so much spam making it as far as Akismet that this happens more than once or twice a week, so I've never been bothered to make the attempt.

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