Spam at campmyrtlewood.org
Tue, 06/23/2009 - 6:38pm
I hoped it wouldn't happen this quickly, but we got our first spam today, in the form of a credit card offer in a forum post. Because of the notification feature, I got email about it right away and was able to log on and delete it.
If this becomes a big hassle, I have some options for spam control. One is to use the CAPTCHA technique, where you would have to type in the characters shown in a distorted image that computers are unable to read. I'd prefer not to do that, though, because I don't want to introduce something that can be a hassle for Campers.
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Camp Myrtlewood Managers:
Margaret &
John Jones
(541) 572-5307
Our address:
49658 Myrtle Creek Road,
Myrtle Point, Oregon 97458
Affiliated with
The Church of the Brethren
Member of the
Outdoor Ministries
Association
We've gotten a flurry of spam over that last week, probably over 30 posts. Some of it quite appalling. I hope I've been able to catch it before anyone has seen it. Most of it has been far from "family friendly." In response, I have installed Mollum, which is a spam-filtering service created by some of the same people that are behind the open-source technology that this site runs on (Drupal).
Mollum will analyze any post when it is submitted, and if it seems that it might be spam, the poster will be given a CAPTCHA challenge. What I really like about the Mollum method is that instead of requiring every poster to answer the CAPTCHA challenge (which is just annoying), currently only about 2% of human users are challenged. This suggests that it's very likely you will never even notice that Mollom is doing anything.
I need to figure out the best way to put a notice about Mollum where it will be seen in the appropriate context. Something along these lines: "by posting a message, you accept that your message and other personal details about you will be analyzed and stored for anti-spam and quality monitoring purposes, in accordance with Mollom's privacy policy." I trust the Mollom people, I believe this is the best solution, and I very much hope this doesn't discourage people from posting here.
David, your friendly local webmaster