I have had a spam filter working it's magic... of the 300 (approx) spam messages I receive each day, about 240 are caught by the filter and deleted automatically. The remaining 60 just slip their way through until I add keywords or patterns to the spam filter so that it can identify such comments as spam. Of course, the spamming engines are clever, they constantly change the embedded URLs, and keywords, yet they still manage to promote the sites (which is of course their aim).
It's not all rosy of course, sometimes the spam filter can be a little harsh and strip out genuine comments... there has to be a better way....
Some time ago, I tried implementing a Captcha module... a means of generating an image containing a randomly generated set of letters. The intention here is that web visitors have to enter this set of letters as they leave a comment - the blog software checks the 'validation' or 'verification' code before allowing the comment to be submitted (see also What is Captcha?)
After some discussion last night, it seems sensible to invest time ... which I have this morning ... on getting this working properly. I now have.
For those using Drupal, you need to read about, download and intall the Captcha module. It requires this patch to enable comment Captcha's and this involves hacking the comment.module file around a bit. But I managed to get it to work.
I've used a cleaner TrueType font in the Captcha. It is easier to read and I've removed the shapes and patterns which formed the background image to the Captcha word and did make it much harder to read. I want my web visitors to have an easy a time as possible to leave comments... I don't want to do this even... but needs must. Much much easier than forcing people to register a user account before commenting... I can't imagine asking people to do that, let alone login each time too.
Please let me know what you think of this implementation. Does it work for you? Just wondering what I'm going to do with that free hour this evening when I'm not deleting spam! :-)
Linda H
Hi Jonathan - just thought I'd try out the new spam filter. I agree about logging in to leave comments - it is a pain and it does put me off commenting on people's blogs.
Jonathan
Thank you Linda... really helpful. Already I have started to relax and not worry about spam comments messing up the front page of my blog... and the time taken in deleting messages was becoming quite silly... in fact, when you start finding ways to delete spam more easily and efficiently... makes you realise quite how bad the situation had become.
Not ideal, but I'm glad it worked for you... and actually, the users/visitors are who I worry about most. I want people to come past and feel they can leave a comment... and the spam I felt was partly preventing them from doing so.
I'm feeling better already :-)
Andy
Hi Jonathan, you've ended up conceeding to the spammers but probably in one of the least bad ways.
Any news on my suffix field query?
Jonathan
How do you mean conceded? I haven't given in to them... only prevented / blocked / barred them :-)
I'm interested to know how you are getting around this... what level of spam attack are you experiencing? I remember you refusing to use the A for Apple box on your blog - though Gina and others are. I can't be alone in suffering minute by minute spam!?
I wished the spam filter software was as good as the filter used by Apple's Mail application, it's intelligence for identifying spam and it's ability to learn about what constitutes spam is fantastic.
Interested to hear about your experience.... as I am any other people who are also struggling with spam.
Thanks Andy for leaving your comment to test this new form... really helpful and appreciated.
By the way, I've replied to your query about the degree title suffix in FirstClass :-)
Andy
I just meant that any kind of visible hurdle for commenters is a concession to the problem, not that it advantages the spammers in any way.
I continue to use the MT Blacklist system and the level of spam which needs manual attention isn't too bad right now - like none for a few days. I'm beginning to think that trackback is not worth the bother though. The thing which worries me is that I ocassionally get an email or speak to somebody who says they tried to leave a comment and couldn't. Perhaps that's because Slartibarfast is a little unresponsive sometimes, or maybe I have a rogue expression in the blacklist. Also, during periods of increased new spam it's possible to delete genuine comments by mistake if you're not careful, so not ideal.
Wiki spam on my MediaWiki is more of a concern, although that seems to have eased up a bit. I don't mind the occasional main page revert but I had one spamming visitor who would paste a pageful of links into a dozen or so of the main content pages and then create a raft of identical new pages as well - Grrr. These people aren't spamming to get human attention, but for google's page rank sake.
One point about the system here: Most blogs allow commenters to leave a URL linking back to their own blog which then appears as their name, but you don't have that field for some reason. I'll try including the html, but that won't be saved in my browser for future comments like the usual form. I think that's an important part of the networking.
Andy
Andy
update - it looks like comments on my blog have been broken.
"Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:
You are not allowed to post comments.
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment."
I suppose I'll have to get in touch with Pete Bradshaw again....
Jonathan
Let me know how Pete gets on with fixing comments to your blog to Slartibartfast since if he hasn't made any headway, I'll take a look and see what's going on. Seems a bit bizarre. I can only imagine that the A for Apple thing is somehow getting in the way of the validation of comment form data. I know you have chosen to not have this feature... but maybe something has crept into the mix since you made that decision?
I had forgotten about the MT Blacklist... that's a handy little utility since the Blacklist is site-wide and therefore everyone's blogs are protected against well known, listed spamming engines. I hate the fact that these spammers are geared purely for Google's benefit... I have to say that my spam has dropped from 300 odd, to zero! It was getting ridiculous!
I haven't got the URL as part of the comment submission form. Much of what I am trying to do is make commenting as simple as possible... when presented with a long form, I can lose interest in my original aim to share my experience, hence the simplicity of mine. I'm unlikely to change that to be honest, but as you will notice, am happy for people to hyperlink from within the comments - so long as the links support the context of the comment or author. I hear what you say about networking and the ability for the browser to save form data... I may think some more on this... cheers Andy.
Andy
Hiya again. Pete looked into my problem with comments and advised me that an IP address ban was blocking a whole range of addresses. So I removed the IP bans and I think it's OK now. Not sure if that explains why all the usual spammers have stopped as well mind.
Andy
Sam Golden
Hi
Im thinking of setting up a website like a blog where people can leave comments on each article
how would I do it?
ill be using a .co.uk
and idealy I want people to be able to leave comments on my main page
im using dreamweaver
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