fidzu : web

Aidan Foster's keynote on adapting to AI: balance cheap execution with human judgment, deep customer relationships, and strategic creativity.

26 Oct 2026 3:27pm GMT

On October 25, Akismet turns 21. We're celebrating with a few new guests: an official Drupal module, a PHP SDK, and another year of improvements to our WordPress plugin. Spam still isn't on the list.

Akismet launched in October 2005 to help people spend less time dealing with comment spam and more time enjoying their blogs. The web has changed a lot since then. People build communities, collect inquiries, accept donations, and create applications on all kinds of platforms. Each of those places gives people a way to contribute. It also gives spammers somewhere to try their luck.

Since then, Akismet has blocked over 570 billion pieces of spam. Every one is something a site owner didn't have to spend time sorting through. Our birthday wish is to keep making more room for the real people.

Welcome, Drupal

This year, we released the official Akismet Drupal module, built by the team behind Akismet. It brings our spam protection to Drupal comments, contact forms, webforms, and user registrations, with tools for moderators to review submissions and send corrections back to Akismet.

We've continued building on that welcome. The latest release supports Drupal 12 and passes richer bot-detection signals into spam scoring. On Drupal 12, comments and registrations are supported now; contact forms, webforms, and the Key module will follow as those modules become ready for Drupal 12.

For people using the older community module, we also built an upgrade path to the official module that carries their API key and protection settings across. The migration guide explains the requirements and which settings need attention.

Welcome, PHP developers

Akismet's API has long made it possible to protect sites beyond WordPress. This year's official PHP SDK gives developers a first-party client for bringing that protection into their own PHP applications, including projects built with Laravel or Symfony.

The SDK handles the Akismet API integration so developers can focus on their application. It supports checking submissions, reporting spam and legitimate content, and retrieving usage and account information. The official Drupal module uses it too.

If you're building a place where people can post, sign up, or send a message, there's a new tool to help you keep the spam out.

A familiar guest, with a few improvements

WordPress has been with us from the beginning. This year, we kept improving that experience: clearer setup and error messages, accessibility improvements, better detection of automated submissions, and compatibility fixes. You can find the details in the WordPress plugin release log.

Version 5.7 also added support for Abilities and Connectors, helping Akismet fit into WordPress's evolving tools for integrating external services.

More room for real people

A comment worth replying to. A message from a future customer. A donation to a cause someone cares about. Those are the things we want coming through.

Thank you to everyone who uses Akismet, builds an integration, reports a problem, or helps us improve. You've been part of these 21 years, and you're very much invited to the celebration.

Whether your site runs on WordPress, Drupal, or something you're building yourself with the PHP SDK, there's room at the table.

Just no room for spam.

Try out the Drupal module today!

26 Oct 2026 3:16pm GMT

Opening access is only the first step. Sustaining the people, institutions and infrastructure that keep knowledge available is the greater challenge.

Behind every published research paper lies years of work, often supported by public funding. Yet the institutions producing that knowledge do not necessarily control how it reaches the world. New research released by SPARC on 14 October, ahead of International Open Access Week, estimates that more than 95% of investment in a typical research article occurs before publisher submission, based on its accounting model. A companion study found operating margins of 24% to 38% among major academic publishers in 2025. The figures raise an uncomfortable question: who should benefit from knowledge that society has largely paid to create?

Removing paywalls is important, but it does not automatically make scholarly publishing fair or sustainable. Some open-access models shift costs from readers to researchers through publication fees, potentially excluding scholars with fewer resources. Alternatives exist. Harvard Library, for instance, supports journals that charge neither authors nor readers. Such models still require institutional investment, editorial labour and dependable technology. The real challenge is not simply making research available, but ensuring that openness does not depend on another form of exclusion.

The same challenge extends to the infrastructure behind public knowledge. A 14 October appeal from SCOSS sought renewed funding for the Research Data Alliance and Software Heritage, noting that insufficient funding had delayed some planned standards work. Open-source communities understand these pressures. Drupal, for example, supports complex institutional publishing environments, including a UK university platform managing more than 190,000 research records. Maintaining such systems requires continuing work on security, accessibility, data management and technical reliability. The software may be open, but the responsibility of sustaining it remains substantial.

Perhaps the most important lesson from this year's Open Access Week is that openness needs a long-term commitment, not just a declaration of principle. Universities, governments and other institutions should treat shared digital infrastructure as an essential public investment, with predictable funding, accountable governance and support for the people maintaining it. The open-source movement has demonstrated what communities can build together. Its continuing challenge is ensuring that those contributions remain useful and accessible for generations. Knowledge should belong to everyone, but keeping it that way must also become everyone's responsibility.

Follow The DropTimes on LinkedIn and Bluesky, or join #thedroptimes on Drupal Slack.

Kazima Abbas wrote and curated this issue of Editor's Pick.

26 Oct 2026 3:03pm GMT

The Web of Things (WoT) Working Group rechartered for two years to improve IoT interoperability and address physical AI use cases. WoT counteracts fragmentation in IoT by providing building blocks that enable seamless device integration across smart buildings, industrial automation, and energy management. Drawing on Plugfest insights, the new charter focuses on enhancing Thing Description expressiveness, introducing protocol bindings, and guiding AI agents.

21 Oct 2026 9:05am GMT

A new feature is available in W3C's mailing list archives, aiming to make it easier to read and navigate message threads.

19 Oct 2026 9:03am GMT

W3C groups now have an Activity page that shows, month by month, their charters, publications, meetings, participants and GitHub work in one place. The pages are in beta, and we would like your feedback.

14 Oct 2026 10:28am GMT

On January 14, 2006, John Resig introduced a JavaScript library called jQuery at BarCamp in New York City. Now, 20 years later, the jQuery team is happy to announce the final release of jQuery 4.0.0. After a long development cycle and several pre-releases, jQuery 4.0.0 brings many improvements and modernizations. It is the first major … Continue reading →

18 Jan 2026 12:29am GMT

It's here! Almost. jQuery 4.0.0-rc.1 is now available. It's our way of saying, "we think this is ready; now poke it with many sticks". If nothing is found that requires a second release candidate, jQuery 4.0.0 final will follow. Please try out this release and let us know if you encounter any issues. A 4.0 … Continue reading →

11 Aug 2025 5:35pm GMT

Last February, we released the first beta of jQuery 4.0.0. We're now ready to release a second, and we expect a release candidate to come soon™. This release comes with a major rewrite to jQuery's testing infrastructure, which removed all deprecated or under-supported dependencies. But the main change that warranted a second beta was a … Continue reading →

17 Jul 2024 2:03pm GMT

When it comes to crafting an article, the headline is crucial for grabbing the reader's attention and enticing them to read further. In this post, I'll explore the 7 types of article headlines and provide examples for each using the subjects of product management, user experience design, and search engine optimization. 1. The Know-it-All The […]

The post 7 Types of Article Headlines: Craft the Perfect Title Every Time first appeared on Smiley Cat.

29 May 2023 10:20pm GMT

Product management is one of the most exciting and rewarding careers in the tech world. But it's also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented. There are many myths and misconceptions that cloud the reality of what product managers do, how they do it, and what skills they need to succeed. In this blog post, […]

The post 5 Product Management Myths You Need to Stop Believing first appeared on Smiley Cat.

09 Apr 2023 5:28pm GMT

The role of a product manager is crucial to the success of any product. They are responsible for managing the entire product life cycle, from conceptualization to launch and beyond. A product manager must possess a unique blend of skills and qualities to be effective in their role. Strong strategic thinking A product manager must […]

The post The Key Strengths of the Best Product Managers first appeared on Smiley Cat.

11 Dec 2022 4:43pm GMT