Geeklog Documentation - SpamX Plugin

SpamX Plugin

Introduction

The Geeklog SpamX plugin was created to fight the problem of comment spam for Geeklog systems. If you are unfamiliar with comment spam you might see the Comment Spam Manifesto.

MT-Blacklist

The main mechanism SpamX uses to fight comment spam is to use the blacklist created by Jay Allen and Movable Type users - MT-Blacklist. You can find out info about this project at http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/. Jay has taken it upon himself not only to write and support the plugin for Movable Type but also to maintain the blacklist. This requires human effort to review all the submissions and determine which are really spam and which are just noise. If you have a few extra bucks drop by Jay's website above and drop a few dollars in his PayPal account to show your appreciation.

The MT-Blacklist theory is that comment spammers do it to increase their Google rankings and therefore the link is all important. The MT-Blacklist therefore only filters on urls.

Other options

The MT-Blacklist is only one part of the Geeklog SpamX plugin however. The SpamX plugin has its own personal blacklist that you can add to. You can use it to filter anything from comments. One option is to import the Geeklog censor list and ban all comments which contain one of those words. This or an expanded list might be usefull for a website that caters to children. Then no comments with offensive language could be posted.

Module types

The SpamX plugin was built to be expandable to easily adapt to changes the comment spammers might make. There are three types of modules: admin, examine and action. A new module is contained in a file and can simply be dropped in and it will be added to the plugin. The modules with which the plugin ships are:

• Admin
  • View SpamX log
  • Update MT-Blacklist
  • Edit Personal Blacklist
  • View/Import Other Personal Blacklists
• Examine
  • MT-Blacklist
  • Personal Blacklist
• Action
  • Delete Comment if on Blacklist
  • Mail Admin if Comment Rejected

Other modules can be just dropped into place and they will become available to the plugin. To remove a module just delete it from the spamx directory or rename it. Planned modules include:

• Easy mass deletion of spam comments
• Parsing comments and automatic adding spam links
• Comparing MT-Blacklist and personal blacklist to eliminate duplications

Action modules are each assigned a number and the actions taken when a spam comment is found can be designated by a configuration variable. Note: the spamx interface has been generalized and can be called by other modules and plugins. See the developer docs for details.

Sharing blacklists

One feature of the SpamX plugin is the ability to share your blacklist and to view and import the Blacklists of other SpamX plugin users. Your participation in this will help give early warning to other SpamX plugin users. This facility will also make it possible to create special blacklists for different classes of users such as k-12 schools. The sharing of blacklists uses rss feeds to distibute the blacklists. If anyone wants to create a special blacklist I will make the server and interface scripts to facilitate this.

Plugin Homepage

Further information as well as a support forum for the SpamX plugin can be found on the SpamX Plugin's Homepage.