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--Tech & Moderator Notes
Under the hood
2014-07-11
We've had a problem with spam comments going in for days gone by for several years, even though the comments for a day shut off with midnight rollover. I guess they count for Google points or something. I've been afraid to tackle them because I was afraid of killing legitimate comments along with the machine-generated crap. Instead I just went in now and then and dumped them by hand.

Last night I dumped about 87,000 of the stinkers. I hadn't cleaned house in a week or so, but that was still too significant to ignore. So I wrote a routine to divert them to a holding table, which I can clean out periodically.

If you make a comment and it's lost (which doesn't include Smoked or Spam Copped or otherwise sink trapped) let me know and I'll see if it got diverted. If we go for a month or so without losing any real comments the crap can go directly into the bit bucket.
Posted by:Fred

#9  You could put random pictures of 2 numbers on the page and get people to type them in with their comment.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2014-07-11 14:45  

#8  Thank you Fred for your tenacity and care for us here at Rantburg university!
Posted by: 49 Pan   2014-07-11 14:38  

#7  They switch IP adresses, but you're right. In the 3000 or so we've been gifted with overnight there aren't more than a couple dozen and IPs. They're all bots. I checked a few of the IPs and they came up as France and Ukraine. If I check further I'll come up with Moldova, Russia, maybe China.

Since no more spam's shown up in the comments table since last night I'm not going to worry my pretty little head about it.

If we lose legit comments, that's a problem. Otherwise, problem solved.
Posted by: Fred   2014-07-11 11:22  

#6  With that many samples it would be kinda fun to track the source(s).
Posted by: Skidmark   2014-07-11 10:06  

#5  Hat tip to the master.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-07-11 07:50  

#4  Takes dedication, thanks.
Posted by: Incredulous   2014-07-11 04:27  

#3  87,000 sounds like you are pissing off the thugs! Good.
Posted by: 3dc   2014-07-11 01:16  

#2  Fred's the Man!!
Posted by: Steven   2014-07-11 01:13  

#1  thanks, Fred
Posted by: texhooey   2014-07-11 00:12  

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