Prometheus 6: Comment spam

October 09, 2003

Comment spam

UPDATE: Thanks to trackbacks, Jay has suggested in the comments that I wait for the MT-Blacklist plugin to be completed instead of fooling around with macros. I can take orders when it's to my benefit.

Today Michael at Move The Crowd linked to a plugin to stop comment spam that displays a graphic with a confirmation code that must be entered. I was thinking about whether or not to install it.

Nope.

Dana Blankenhorn at Moore's Lore just posted a pointer to Jay Allen's plug-in:

In response to a Lazyweb request, today I will offer you a solution for stopping comment spam. There are many out there, but none really satisfied all of my requirements. Here are the positive features of the solution I will be explaining:

Doesn�t rely on easily circumventable form or javascript hacks
Targets the core content of comment spam (i.e. the URL) and not the IP address or other easily changeable information
No MT source code hacking required
Blacklist is trivial to maintain
Comments with blacklisted content never show up on the site
Retroactive blacklisting removes existing comment spam
Potential for collaborative filtering

And now the drawbacks:

Doesn�t prevent the submission of comment spam, only the display
Requires three plugins (which you really should have anyway)
Slight slowdown in comment popups or rebuilds for pages with static comments

The required plugins are Brad Choate's MT-Macros, MT-Regex and PerlScript. I don't have the Perlscript plugin yet, but I will.

It requires you maintain a list of offenders, but gives you a starting point if, like me, you'll be taking prophylactic measures.

Posted by P6 at October 9, 2003 01:46 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1931

Comments

I'd hold off installing the macro solution. I'm about to release it in (a far-improved) plugin form. See the latest entry on my site.

Posted by at October 9, 2003 01:59 PM

LORD POLONIUS [. . .] What do you read, my lord? HAMLET Words, words, words. LORD POLONIUS What is the...
Read more in Hamlet, Act II, Scene II »

Uppity-Negro.com: A Blood Syndicate Fansite Oct 10, 2003 3:27 PM

Yeah, I've been getting some comment spam lately too. The problem has been around for awhile but this is the first time it's really caused trouble for me.

Posted by at October 10, 2003 10:19 PM

I now have a working captcha thanks to James Seng. I really don't care how much of a pain it is on the accessibility front, the spammers have driven me to finding a working solution. The don't allow comments from google searches hack also makes first t...
Read more in Automated Comment SPAM Solution »

Reflective Reality Oct 11, 2003 2:33 AM