m0thman - 10:53 am on Oct 2, 2008 (gmt 0)

Very interesting post which I shall chew over at my leisure and perhaps learn something. For now, I'll describe my methods of keeping the spam down.

I don't use captcha's (personally find them irritating) and I like to have control over "my stuff" which is why I don't use a third party to vet my comments. I also don't rely on people using javascript, although for sure most people have it turned on, but I like to keep things simple. Now I don't get tons of forum traffic, perhaps no more than 50-60 a day, sometimes up to a 100 which I guess you could say is pretty small fry really so why bother. The methods I use seem to work for me.

I first of all apply the comment against a list of blocked IP addresses that I maintain, these include IP ranges (occasionally one has to block AOL until the children get bored and move on to somewhere else). I keep the list small and after a while lift the ban. That's all automated and for me is a single click affair.

Okay, if they're allowed to post then next gets run through a filter. I have a strict no swearing, SMS text style writing, all capitals etc. policy. I also don't hyperlink web addresses (perhaps that's the most successful thing of all!). The filter also makes sure the post is within minimum and maximum length. Two words isn't really worthwhile in my opinion and wafflers need to learn to get to the point. I also force the use of the capital "I" in the sentence. I know this all sounds a bit tedious, but it weeds out those who have something worthwhile to say from those who are lazy and just there to abuse the forum.

If it passes the IP check and the filter then it gets posted, but it doesn't end there. I moderate using my own purpose built tool that quickly shows me all the comments and allows me to kill posts with a single click, pull out everything from a single IP and then delete and ban.

Perhaps that last bit sounds like too much work, but I spend ten to fifteen minutes a day moderating, some of that actually reading the stuff anyway. I guess if things get busier I may have to look into other methods (captcha's etc.) but for now it works and isn't too hard to look after...