On February 25, 2006 Blogware will be adding anti-spam features and performing optimization on the system. Here's an overview of the changes you'll see.
Spam Protection Settings
A section will added to Settings & Security -> Publishing Defaults page entitled ‘Spam Protection Settings’.
This section will add the following settings:
- No Follow for Comments and Trackbacks - sets any URLs in comments and trackbacks to use the NOFOLLOW attribute.
- Comment Moderation - allows blog owners to preview and approve comments
- Trackback Moderation - allows blog owners to preview and approve trackbacks
The following existing settings will be moved to this section:
- Anonymous Comments
- Comment Verification
Comment Moderation
If Comment Moderation is enabled, comments will not be immediately posted to a blog until the blog owner approves the comment for posting. Blog readers who post a comment on a blog with moderation enabled will see an informational message when the comment is accepted by the system.
Blog owners will be notified by email of comments in the moderation queue. The email notification is sent to the email address configured for the blog owner in the Blog Profile. This message is not customizable. Notifications will be sent every half hour so the blog owner is not overwhelmed with emails for every comment received. The message will indicate the number of comments in moderation.
The Recent Comments area of the Dashboard View will be updated. A Spam Flag column has been added to flag recent comments identified by Blogware as potential spam. Also, a Status flag has been added. A comment can either have the status Waiting for Approval or Posted.
Blog owners can Delete, Delete and Block, and Approve selected comments. Single and multiple comments can be selected for any action.
Spam is automatically detected by Blogware and flagged using a scoring system. The following items are checked in each comment posted to the system.
1. Is Poster using an Open Proxy?
2. Is the Comment being made to a post over a month old?
3. Are there numerous URLs in the body of the comment?
4. Have there been multiple comments to same blog over past hour?
5. Have there been numerous comments to many different blogs referring back to the same URL over the last hour?
6. Are there any typical spam words in the Content of the comment?
All comments that fail the automatic checks will be flagged as Spam. If Comment Moderation is disabled then the comment will still be posted to the blog.
Trackback Moderation
If Trackback Moderation is enabled, blog owners will be notified by email of trackbacks in the moderation queue. The email notification is sent to the email address configured for the blog owner in the Blog Profile. This message is not customizable. Notifications will be sent every half hour so the blog owner is not overwhelmed with emails for every trackback received. The message will indicate the number of trackbacks in moderation.
Blog owners can Delete, Delete and Block, and Approve selected trackbacks. Single and multiple trackbacks can be selected for action.
Trackback Spam that is detected by the Blogware system will automatically be prevented from being posted on a blog.
Currently, the following trackback checks are performed:
- Is the trackback URL on the users' blacklist or the global blacklist?
- Is the trackback source IP, or destination IP on the user or global blacklist? Source is defined as "where did the trackback come from" and destination as "who are they advertising".
- Were duplicate trackbacks received within the same time frame?
- Were multiple trackbacks received from the same IP across Blogware during the same time frame?
With this release, the following checks will be added:
- The content of the trackback excerpt will be checked against the blacklisted URLs list
- The content of the trackback will be tested against the keyword list to identify potential spam
All trackbacks automatically identified as spam by the system will not be posted.
Posting Comments Using the New Comment Form
The Comment Form will have new fields added to provide blog owners more information about commenters. Anonymous commenters will be able to enter contact information including a Name, URL and Email:
Authenticated commenters will be able to enter a Contact URL.
When blog owners review comments in the Publisher’s Control Panel, the contact information will be shown in the by line of the comment. The URL will be formatted as a hyperlink to the commenter’s name
Blocking Referrers
Blog owners will be able to ‘Select and Block Unwanted Visitors from their Blog.’ Referrers who are on the Blogware System Blacklist will now be prevented from visiting a Blogware site. Users who are blocked from Blogware or a specific Blog will now see an ‘Access Denied’ error message when attempting to access a blocked area.
When a blog owner select ‘Delete and Block’ comments, trackbacks, or referrers, the IP or Hostname of the blocked item will be added to the user’s firewall. The User will be able to see the list of Blocked Hostnames and IP addresses in their firewall.
Blogware also maintains global blacklists and whitelist that are applied to all blogs. In addition, Blogware will now maintain a spam keyword list. This list contains typical ‘spam’ words and will be updated as the spam-world evolves. All trackbacks and comments will be checked against these keywords as part of the automatic spam trackback and comment checks.
Optimization
The database Schema will be modified to ensure that frequently updated tables are optimized
Downloadable Statistics File
In this release, blog owners will be able to download a statistics file. The statistics file is a raw Apache log file which will be available for each day in a 7 day rotating cycle. This log file can be used in any log analysis program supporting standard Apache log file formats.
