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The New Commenting System | mrsmiley { June 25, 2007 }

I recently implemented several upgrades and updates to our back-end system here at HBN, the main one being a new commenting SPAM filter. Read on for important info about commenting.

The comic above perfectly describes my thoughts on the whole "type-the-illegible-characters to-register-process". (and it's a great strip, so give them a look by clicking on the pic!) I also have a pet peeve about requiring someone to register with a site when all they want to do is post a quick comment about someone. So because of this, we're not doing that.

What we DID do, is beef up our CMS (content management system) with a spiffy new SPAM overlord. Here's how it works...

spambob posts the following comment for the first time on our site:

OMG JIM SAID YOU NEED TEH ERECTION WIT VIAGRA GO TO http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol http://www.viagra.com/omglol

This comment immediately gets moved to a junk box and doesn't get posted. I look up the comment, because I'm really curious why, and I see this:

SpamLookup Link Filter -1.0 Number of links exceed junk limit
SpamLookup Keyword Filter -4.0 Word Filter match on 'viagra': 'viagra'.

This will give the comment a whopping score of -5.0. Too bad you need a score of +1.0 to have your comment actually posted on this site! If you post a comment that gets a 0 or lower score, you will see the following message:

I will be monitoring accidental junked comments as best I can, but sometimes I may miss them. Here are some tips to keep your comments from being junked:

- Don't use spam words like viagra, sex, phentermine, etc...
- Don't post links in your comments.
- Be someone who has commented before. This automatically gives you a +1 and allows you to comment, which is why so many "spam" comments made it through when we did the test. :)
- Use the same email every time you comment.

If you guys have any issues, feel free to contact me on our forum about it. Here's to a hopefully spam-free future!

Note: I'm still working on some things, so if weird stuff happens (like the current comic pages not displaying properly), just give me some time to smooth things out. Thanks!