Implemented Captcha to stop the CommunityServer spam

Published Saturday, November 04, 2006 1:38 PM

I don't care what anyone says about the Spam Rules engine in Community Server. It may work partially, but it sure isn't great. I got nearly 200 spam messages yesterday on ChrisHammond.com, and I'd estimate 1500 over the past 7 days.

That's 1500 freaking spam messages about Dale Earnhardt, used cell phones, Bahamas beach clubs and who knows what other topics. I have all the CS spam rules implemented, including the Akismet rules as well, yet I still get spam messages coming through. Community Server may filter the spam into probable and likely, but that's not good enough for me anymore.

I want spam stopped before it gets there. So, in an attempt to thwart the deluge of spam I've implemented a captcha control that I downloaded from communityserver.org. I hope that this allows me to simple block the spam posts from getting entered at all, rather than just filtering them into seperate buckets.

I'll post later this week with an update on how things are going.... Down with the spam!

by Chris Hammond
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Comments

# Keyvan Nayyeri said on Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:05 PM

Regardless of being in Community Server or other engines, nowadays people try to avoid using CAPTCHA and have several reasons for it. But I think by having a good configuration for your Community Server Spam Rules, you won't get any pubic spam. I get more than 200-300 spams everyday but none of them get published. There is just one case which can make your spam rules useless: When Akismet is Down! If you're using Akismet rule for a professional site with many spams per day, would try to use a commercial key because they won't handle more than a specific number of requests per day. However, I don't say Spam Rules work properly 100% but good configurations can improve them to 95-98%.

# Rick Strahl said on Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:57 PM

I hear you ... But why re-invent the wheel? There are several good CAPTCHA controls out there. I use Jeff Atwood's control which is good and he's just released an updated version that is 2.0 specific and does away with the Session requirement. http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/CaptchaControl.asp

# Chris Hammond said on Sunday, November 05, 2006 11:21 AM

Captcha is working for me so far. I've not gotten a single spam post, public or otherwise, on http://ChrisHammond.com since I implemented the Captcha control.

# Community Server Daily News said on Monday, November 06, 2006 5:00 PM

news of the day a grab bag for what's happening in Community Server Steve Kaschimer describes a very

# Wouter Crooy said on Sunday, December 10, 2006 6:07 PM

Hi there,

CAPTCHA works pretty nice for CS but why are there so few akismet implementations? And why haven't you used it?

# Chris Hammond said on Sunday, December 10, 2006 9:00 PM

Wouter, I've used the akismet implementation. Captcha has worked out great for me.

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