War on SPAM

Anyone who's had a website with user-generated content knows that this is a problem. Forums, picture galleries, BLOGs and whatnot are just magnets for useless ads. The SPAMbots are getting smarter, and they can often pass the test which are designed to filter them out.

I just cleared out 40,000 SPAM comments (!!!!) from the Freespace image gallery - it was so bad that I the database had gone over its size limit, so I couldn't even log in as admin to delete them normally. I had to go in the back way using my webhost's database administration tool, use the SQL DROP table command on the comments table, then re-create it so that the gallery would load again.

On this site, I had it set so comments needed to be approved before they showed up. That means me filtering through pages of SPAM to find that one comment from a friend and approve it.

Not worth it to keep fighting this battle anymore. Comments are now disabled for the image gallery, and for this site. SarahIvy and mom, you'll have to find a new way to comment on my ramblings. The SPAMbots have won this round