3 ms·

Sorry to be blunt, but stop bitching and fix the problems. I don't think this type of give-up attitude goes over well on HN.

mattmaroon 17y ago
What's even worse is I've used Drupal just enough to know that stopping link spamming is as simple as installing the right plugin. I haven't done it in years, but I'd bet it's even better now since there's almost certainly an Akismet plugin. *Edit: just typed "drupal ak" in Google which auto-completed and took me to just such a plugin. I'm sorry, but if you can't figure that out, you have no business on the web.
- GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
  In fact, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert has a side-project called Mollom for eliminating comment spam. And of course it integrates very nicely with Drupal. Sounds to me like whoever they hired to do the site didn't have much of a clue.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    They quite clearly said they couldn't be bothered to spend money on it as it wasn't earning anything. She could, if she wants, get this latest huge barrage of spam cleared out on Boudica and improve spam filters going forward, if she choses. She’s currently debating this. It just may be, as I explained above, that this was the thing that tips her toward closing the site, something she was already considering because of low usage. In a way it's probably not a bad thing if low traffic me-too style sites are discouraged a little - if there's something worth keeping then for the cost of a meal for two you can hire someone to install a captcha (or whatever) and strip out the spam. If the content isn't worth that then, does the web need it. The story sounds more like the tale of someone who didn't have time or resources to do anything with there not-especially-unique website and then got annoyed because it attracted more bad attention than good. The link-spam is an excuse, IMO, to close the site and not lose face. Sure it's annoying, sure it shouldn't happen (like people putting flyers on your windscreen), but don't lose sleep over it.
    - GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
      I just wanted to note that Mollom is free for small sites and takes no more than ten minutes to install (maybe two minutes if you know what you're doing) so yeah, I agree, it's more of an excuse for closing a small site.
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  I've had good success with the Captcha Riddler plugin for Drupal. It's just a very simple, non-obfuscated text captcha. It adds "type the word banana" (or any other question/challenge you want) to your registration form. Spam bots bounce right off it. http://drupalmodules.com/module/captcha-riddler http://drupalmodules.com/module/captcha-riddler
  - eli 17y ago
    Except it uses the Captcha module, which disabled page caching on any page that has a captcha -- a dealbreaker for high-traffic sites. I'm using a hacked version of MyCaptcha specifically to avoid that problem.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  A postscript by the author appeared: "I’m not naive. I understand that sites should have anti-spamming filters in place. Lorna’s had some. It could have more. But I’ve also seen spam get through anti-spam filters on my own Sphinn social news site. That site employs multiple-CAPTCHA barriers, along with an array of other deterrents. It also has human moderators. Link spammers still attack it. Link spammers will attack ANYTHING out there, and nothing is foolproof. The first programmer that tells you they have a perfect anti-spam solution will soon after encounter another programmer who will blow that fallacy out of the water." His experience pretty much mirrors my experience. Just using any of the main CMSs out there (drupal, joomla, wordpress, etc) will give you an entry in a bunch of databases of people that will 'visit' you with gifts from time to time.
jacquesm 17y ago
Good point. But: there are a lot of spammers out there and their combined might can make anybody feel sorry about starting their website. Some people walk in to this web thing totally unprepared for the assault by the bad guys and that can be psychologically enough to push someone to the point of saying forget about the whole thing. Even with all the countermeasures in place I still find myself being very selective with the sites where I enable comments by anonymous users, even the best solutions are not 100% effective and when you get a few thousand or more attempts to spam shite some of it will get through. So it will always need a manual step to avoid things getting out of hand. And in spite of all that, it's not rare to wake up to 1,000 or more comments using some new loophole that get posted in one night. If his wife isn't capable enough to remove these from the database programatically then I can see how a few of those episodes would be enough to throw in the towel. Spammers are seriously destructive. Take a look at the 'new' page of HN with showdead on to see how much of it gets posted here. And quite a few of those are removed manually.

mattmaroon 17y ago

What's even worse is I've used Drupal just enough to know that stopping link spamming is as simple as installing the right plugin. I haven't done it in years, but I'd bet it's even better now since there's almost certainly an Akismet plugin. *Edit: just typed "drupal ak" in Google which auto-completed and took me to just such a plugin. I'm sorry, but if you can't figure that out, you have no business on the web.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
In fact, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert has a side-project called Mollom for eliminating comment spam. And of course it integrates very nicely with Drupal. Sounds to me like whoever they hired to do the site didn't have much of a clue.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  They quite clearly said they couldn't be bothered to spend money on it as it wasn't earning anything. She could, if she wants, get this latest huge barrage of spam cleared out on Boudica and improve spam filters going forward, if she choses. She’s currently debating this. It just may be, as I explained above, that this was the thing that tips her toward closing the site, something she was already considering because of low usage. In a way it's probably not a bad thing if low traffic me-too style sites are discouraged a little - if there's something worth keeping then for the cost of a meal for two you can hire someone to install a captcha (or whatever) and strip out the spam. If the content isn't worth that then, does the web need it. The story sounds more like the tale of someone who didn't have time or resources to do anything with there not-especially-unique website and then got annoyed because it attracted more bad attention than good. The link-spam is an excuse, IMO, to close the site and not lose face. Sure it's annoying, sure it shouldn't happen (like people putting flyers on your windscreen), but don't lose sleep over it.
  - GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
    I just wanted to note that Mollom is free for small sites and takes no more than ten minutes to install (maybe two minutes if you know what you're doing) so yeah, I agree, it's more of an excuse for closing a small site.
chaosmachine 17y ago
I've had good success with the Captcha Riddler plugin for Drupal. It's just a very simple, non-obfuscated text captcha. It adds "type the word banana" (or any other question/challenge you want) to your registration form. Spam bots bounce right off it. http://drupalmodules.com/module/captcha-riddler http://drupalmodules.com/module/captcha-riddler
- eli 17y ago
  Except it uses the Captcha module, which disabled page caching on any page that has a captcha -- a dealbreaker for high-traffic sites. I'm using a hacked version of MyCaptcha specifically to avoid that problem.
jacquesm 17y ago
A postscript by the author appeared: "I’m not naive. I understand that sites should have anti-spamming filters in place. Lorna’s had some. It could have more. But I’ve also seen spam get through anti-spam filters on my own Sphinn social news site. That site employs multiple-CAPTCHA barriers, along with an array of other deterrents. It also has human moderators. Link spammers still attack it. Link spammers will attack ANYTHING out there, and nothing is foolproof. The first programmer that tells you they have a perfect anti-spam solution will soon after encounter another programmer who will blow that fallacy out of the water." His experience pretty much mirrors my experience. Just using any of the main CMSs out there (drupal, joomla, wordpress, etc) will give you an entry in a bunch of databases of people that will 'visit' you with gifts from time to time.

jacquesm 17y ago

Good point. But: there are a lot of spammers out there and their combined might can make anybody feel sorry about starting their website. Some people walk in to this web thing totally unprepared for the assault by the bad guys and that can be psychologically enough to push someone to the point of saying forget about the whole thing. Even with all the countermeasures in place I still find myself being very selective with the sites where I enable comments by anonymous users, even the best solutions are not 100% effective and when you get a few thousand or more attempts to spam shite some of it will get through. So it will always need a manual step to avoid things getting out of hand. And in spite of all that, it's not rare to wake up to 1,000 or more comments using some new loophole that get posted in one night. If his wife isn't capable enough to remove these from the database programatically then I can see how a few of those episodes would be enough to throw in the towel. Spammers are seriously destructive. Take a look at the 'new' page of HN with showdead on to see how much of it gets posted here. And quite a few of those are removed manually.