External links in article Comment Spam

[estelaris]

Issue Description

Still maintains links to Codex and an external site that I'm not even sure it is built with Wordpress

URL of the Page with the Issue

Comment spam

Section of Page with the issue

Fighting comment spam
The good news

Why is this a problem?

Suggested Fix

• Remove links to Codex
• Update content
• Review external link to molly .com

[github-actions]

Heads up @femkreations @atachibana - the "user documentation" label was applied to this issue.

[github-actions]

Heads up @zzap - the "external links" label was applied to this issue.

[aurooba]

I removed the links to the Codex, but I think this whole page needs to be re-thought, the way it currently reads is more like an opinion piece rather than a factual help article.

[aurooba]

I started porting over some of the FAQs from the Codex, and will continue to work on this and update the contents of this page. :)

[VarjoDesigns]

/assign

[github-actions]

Hey @VarjoDesigns, thanks for your interest in this issue! 🍪🍪🍪
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them in our #docs Slack channel.
Enjoy and happy contributing ❤️

[VarjoDesigns]

Hey guys!
I made a few suggestions to further development of this article, as described below.

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Understanding comment spam

Spamming refers to phenomena where someone sends unsolicited messages to a large number of recipients, usually via email or on message boards. It is usually done for commercial purposes, often to advertise or promote a product or service.

The comment sections on blogs can be targeted by spammers, who may post links to external sites, or post keywords to affect search engines. Spam comments can be automated, or posted by humans. This spam can be automated, or posted by human authors. Spam commenting can negatively affect the user experience of the site, so site administrators will usually want to take measures to prevent it.

• I first of all revised the title from "understand comment spam" to "understanding comment spam", as the latter is more grammatically correct and has a more natural flow.

• The leading paragraph is written like an article, which seems a little opinionated for the documentation context, as noted by a previous reviewer. I rewrote this section from a more neutral and concise perspective, that should give users context on what spam is, but not delve too deep into intricacies of the topic.

Comment spam and search engines

• While an interesting topic in it's own right, I don't think it gives too much value to a user who is looking to protect themselves from spam, who would be the main group consuming this article. I would advice to remove this section, or potentially drop it in priority to a more concise form in the FAQ section below.

Fighting comment spam

Enabling WordPress comment moderation will prevent comments from appearing on the site without administrators explicit approval. Spam comments will therefore not be visible to the public viewers at all unless they are approved by an administrator user. Moderation is an effective way to prevent unwanted comments, but requires effort from administrators. Some legitimate users may also be discouraged from further commenting if their comments are not immediately visible. Comment moderation can be enabled in the discussion settings on WordPress administrator dashboard.

Another way to limit spam is to require users to register and log in in order to comment, or to fill out a name and email. Both of these requirements can be enabled in the discussion settings of the administrator dashboard. These options can filter some of the spam bots, but will not be effective to human spammers or advanced bots.

You might want to limit the number of links that can be posted in a comment. This can be done by changing a setting in the discussion settings of the administrator dashboard. This will prevent spammers from posting links to external sites, but will also limit legitimate users from posting links to their own sites.

You can also add spam-related or otherwise harmful keywords to a blacklist in the discussion settings. Any comments containing these keywords will be automatically marked as spam.

If the page isn't meant for discussion or doesn't provide value to users through comment section, you might want to consider disabling comments altogether. This can be done in the discussion settings of the administrator dashboard, and will prevent users from commenting on the site.

• The current iteration of this section is quite concise, so I would expand it by describing a couple other ways to prevent spam comments that exist in the discussion settings of the site.
• I also do not quite see how admin response time would have any noticeable effect on spammers, as spam is usually automated. I removed this notion from my version.

Stealth spam

• I personally find this section somewhat irrelevant, as protection from it is mostly covered in other sections of the post, and this one specificity is not relevant to most users viewing the article. I would personally remove this section.

FAQ

Why are they spamming me?

Spam is rarely targeted at a specific site, but rather usually a result of automated scripts, that will target a large number of sites. The target is usually to reach large volumes of people, so the spammers will target as many sites as they can.

• Rewording

What is the best anti-spam plugin?

• I don't think WordPress documentation should take a stance on which plugin is the best, as this is a very subjective topic. I would personally remove this section.

I have a problem with a plugin

• I don't think this is relevant here, as it is not specific to spam. I would rather users search this up from plugin specific documentation for updated and more focused information.

I have spam appear as soon as I post!

• This is not a question, and answering it would not provide a specific answer. The spam appearing early or late in the article life span doesn't have an effect on the ways we may want to combat it. I would remove this section.

Why is every comment going into the moderation queue?

This could be down to excessively limiting configuration on the discussion settings. Check the message against the spam keywords blacklist to see if any of the words are moderated. Make sure the comment does not contain more links than the limit set in the discussion settings allows for.

I have disabled trackbacks, but trackbacks continue to be posted

If you disabled link notifications from other weblogs, do note that the setting affects new posts only. Existing posts will still accept trackbacks, and need to be disabled manually.

• The rest of the ways to circumvent trackbacks are developer focused, while the article is aimed at end users (being under publishing section of the documentation). I would remove the SQL command and notion of deleting the PHP file.